EDITORIAL
Journalistic Pork? Many decision-making mechanisms in public institutions are based on peer review. Peer review provides a framework, particularly in the research community, for merit-based decisions about academic tenure and promotions, award of government research grants, and publication of scholarly books and research articles. In principle, a peer consulted in the review process is expert in the subject at hand, unbiased, and objective. Although regrettable mistakes sometimes occur, peer review h a s been a n effective tool through which to ascertain the best way to expend public resources and to establish the reliability of published research information. It has been widely respected on this basis. I am concerned about erosion of that respect and the possible consequences. Rep. George E. Brown (CA) recently has focused attention on the federal legislative practice of "pork," in which public funds are awarded for research projects and facilities by political choice and without merit-based evaluation. Brown has pointed out that 499 projects, amounting to $708 million in federal research and development funds, were awarded last year in the United States by "earmarking" legislative actions. I am quite sure that many of these projects are actually of good merit and put public dollars to good use. However, the circumventing of a n objective evaluation of their merits h a s t h e secondary effect of weakening federal reliance on peer review of the scientific quality and desirability of the project in relation to other competing needs. Is it possible that an increased acceptability of non-merit-based practices in federal funding will lead to acceptance of such practices in other decision-making processes such a s those involved in research publications? Certainly a breakdown of the peer review process in scientific publication
would be a fundamental sea change in the development of science, including research in analytical chemistry. ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRYhas from its inception relied on peer review to evaluate papers for publication. Let's imagine what it might be like if, for example, the Editor decides that "pork is OK." If 25% of the research is supported by federal pork allocations, let's allocate 25% of the research publication pages to pork pages. The Editor would select submitted papers for publication on the basis of who is liked, who has or is expected to scratch the Editor's back or the author's institution or geographical area, ignoring or not even seeking external review of the paper's merits. Wow. Sounds awful. The consequences readers would be. The JOURNAL'S would undoubtedly lose respect for the scientific credibility of all the papers in it. Authors of genuinely evaluated papers would be offended, and if other journals adopted the practice, they would have no easy retreat to a quality publication. The scientific literature would become believable only to those able and willing to actually repeat and verify a scientific observation. The public would become indifferent to science funding because the results would not be believable anyway. If you know your history, you will know that peer review of scientific literature did not always exist and there is no immutable law that says it will survive in the future. Already some people believe in e-mail publishing, with no review. The peer review process for assessing scientific merit of a r e s e a r c h r e p o r t m u s t be worried about, guarded, and defended. It is too important to take for granted t h a t changes in review attitudes in other segments of our society, such as those represented by pork, are of no concern.
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 65,NO. 23, DECEMBER 1,1993
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