When I argue, if what I am arguing can be supported by peer-reviewed literature, then I always appeal to peer-reviewed literature. But there are problems coming out with this system.

Look at this article from Evolution News.

Excerpt:

Darwinists have had to back off considerably from the once-confident assertion that peer review in science journals constitutes, as Jerry Coyne put it in 2005 in The New Republic, the “gold standard for modern scientific achievement.” The whole institution of peer review is so besmirched now as to arouse, not even amusement anymore, but something more like pity.

In the same article, Coyne maintained that it was precisely by “By that standard” that advocates of the theory of intelligent design “have failed miserably.” You mean by the standard of what is now revealed as the intellectual and scientific equivalent of insider trading? Or more like racketeering and simple fraud.

The existence of a blog like Retraction Watch is, in this respect, a sign of the times, a measure of the extent to which science publishing has fallen into derision. Their post from a couple of days ago, on a “peer review and citation ring at the Journal of Vibration and Control,” has been widely reported, including the retraction of 60 papers from that journal. Sixty!

“This one deserves a ‘wow,'” observes author Ivan Oransky. Indeed. The cat is really out of the bag.

Slate:

It may not be entirely fair to liken a “peer review and citation ring” to the academic version of an extortion ring, but there’s certainly fraud involved in both. Retraction Watch, a blog dedicated to chronicling which academic papers have been withdrawn, is reporting that SAGE Publishing, a group that puts out numerous peer-reviewed journals, is retracting 60 papers from its Journal of Vibration and Control after an internal investigation uncovered extensive evidence of severe peer-review fraud.

Apparently researcher Peter Chen, formerly of National Pingtung University of Education in Taiwan, made multiple submission and reviewer accounts — possibly along with other researchers at his institution or elsewhere — so that he could influence the peer review system. When Chen or someone else from the ring submitted a paper, the group could manipulate who reviewed the research, and on at least one occasion Chen served as his own reviewer.

Previously, I blogged about the problems in the peer-review process, linking to an article from The Economist and to a podcast featuring Tulane University physicist Frank Tipler.

I’m still going to argue peer-reviewed evidence if I have it, but if some is used against me, I’ll have to take a closer look.