Trial and Error: Many of us consider science the most reliable, accountable way of explaining how the world works. We trust it. Should we? John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist, recently concluded that most articles published by biomedical journals are flat-out wrong. [...]
Journal editors say they can't prevent fraud. In an absolute sense, they're right. But they could make fraud harder to commit. Some critics, including some journal editors, argue that it would help to open up the typically closed peer-review system, in which anonymous scientists review a submitted paper and suggest revisions. [...]
In any case, collaborative review, by forcing scientists to read their reviews every time they publish, would surely encourage humility - a tonic, you have to suspect, for a venture that gets things right only half the time.
