Good ideas don't need bayonets - by Adam Mastroianni

Ever since I published The rise and fall of peer review and got a bunch of comments, I’ve talked to a lot of folks about how to fix science. So far, I’ve realized two things: Almost everybody is hankering for a better way. (Woohoo!) Some people are hankering for a fascist dystopia instead. (Uh oh!) Strangely often, I’ll be talking to someone about all the problems with academic science and everything will be normal and then all of a sudden they’ll reveal a bunch of tyrannical fantasies. Force reviewers to sign their reviews and hold them accountable if the paper’s results don’t hold up! Centralize all journals onto a single website and make everybody submit their papers there! Mount an academia-wide inquisition to identify the data-fakers, the p-hackers, and the over-claimers, and march them off to Science Jail!1 I’m always a little shaken by these conversations. I agree with some of the goals—I would like less fraud and more replication, too. What creeps me out is that people seem to

Ever since I published The rise and fall of peer review and got a bunch of comments, I’ve talked to a lot of folks about how to fix science. So far, I’ve realized two things: Almost everybody is hankering for a better way. (Woohoo!) Some people are hankering for a fascist dystopia instead. (Uh oh!) Strangely often, I’ll be talking to someone about all the problems with academic science and everything will be normal and then all of a sudden they’ll reveal a bunch of tyrannical fantasies. Force reviewers to sign their reviews and hold them accountable if the paper’s results don’t hold up! Centra