The limited effectiveness of prestige as an intervention on the health of medical journal publications

Episteme 10 (4):387-402 (2013)
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Abstract

Under the traditional system of peer-reviewed publication, the degree of prestige conferred to authors by successful publication is tied to the degree of the intellectual rigor of its peer review process: ambitious scientists do well professionally by doing well epistemically. As a result, we should expect journal editors, in their dual role as epistemic evaluators and prestige-allocators, to have the power to motivate improved author behavior through the tightening of publication requirements. Contrary to this expectation, I will argue that the publication bias literature in academic medicine demonstrates that editor interventions have had limited effectiveness in improving the health of the publication and trial registration record, suggesting that much stronger interventions are needed.

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Carole J. Lee
University of Washington

Citations of this work

Is Peer Review a Good Idea?Remco Heesen & Liam Kofi Bright - 2021 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 72 (3):635-663.
Can the Behavioral Sciences Self-correct? A Social Epistemic Study.Felipe Romero - 2016 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 60 (C):55-69.
Commensuration Bias in Peer Review.Carole J. Lee - 2015 - Philosophy of Science 82 (5):1272-1283,.
The Reference Class Problem for Credit Valuation in Science.Carole J. Lee - 2020 - Philosophy of Science 87 (5):1026-1036.

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References found in this work

Science, truth, and democracy.Philip Kitcher - 2001 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The Scientist Qua Scientist Makes Value Judgments.Richard Rudner - 1953 - Philosophy of Science 20 (1):1-6.
Inductive risk and values in science.Heather Douglas - 2000 - Philosophy of Science 67 (4):559-579.
Science, Truth, and Democracy.A. Bird - 2003 - Mind 112 (448):746-749.

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