When Is Science 'Ultimately Unreliable'?

This past October, I published an editorial (Blatt, 2015) appraising the social media phenomenon of PubPeer. I raised several issues with the Web site that I maintain do not serve the scientific community and will only entrench many of the underlying attitudes and behaviors that PubPeer claims it seeks to counter. The response tomyeditorial exceededall expectations— in 18 days it garnered 348 comments, to date almost 3 times the number attached to any other article on the site. PubPeer founder Brandon Stell, and his colleagues Boris Barbour and Gabor Brasnjo, themselves felt compelled to write a defense of the Web site. PubPeer has since attracted further criticism, including an exchange with physicist Philip Moriarty published in Times Higher Education and a blog post from the science journalist Leonid Schneider. I was approached by the editors of RetractionWatch, which also accepts anonymous comments, and wrote a guest post, but the RetractionWatch editors subsequently stepped back from the debate, choosing not to publish the post. At the heart of the issue, and of my Plant Physiology editorial, is whether the anonymous voice has a place in scientific critique. I maintain that it does not and, furthermore, that by promoting anonymous commenting PubPeer undermines open debate that is the cornerstone of the scientific process. As the Editor-in-Chief of Plant Physiology, the most highly cited journal in the plant sciences, and as a scientist still active at the bench myself and training many young researchers, I am deeply concerned that open debate is not lost, both for science today and for the community that this next generation will build in the future. Putting aside the issues of policing for fraud and whistleblowing for themoment, there are a few standard arguments that are often paraded in favor of anonymous commenting. Decide for yourself if they are valid or vacuous. (1) Many fear reprisal, especially if they are seen to question established authority. If true, this argument for anonymity is deeply depressing. Questioning data and ideas is the norm in science. Unless you are making an allegation of misconduct (and we’ve set this aside for the moment), it is possible, even as a Ph.D. student or postdoctoral researcher, to question a senior scientist openly, nonanonymously, in a way that is constructive and nonthreatening. Yes, there are individuals whose minds are closed—I suggest such individuals are not worth the trouble in any case—but usually the outcome is positive and benefits both. Ultimately, it is a warped worldview, indeed, in which scientists are so fearful of engaging that they never challenge others’ research and ideas openly, whether online or in publication. (2) Anonymity ‘levels the playing field’ and is essential to redress inequities that pervade science today. Far from leveling anything, anonymity entrenches inequality in every situation, simply because one side is identified and the other is not. Rather than a formula to enrich debate, anonymity is a recipe that is guaranteed to degrade it. I noted in my editorial that “anonymity is intimidating . and the price often is an absence of worthwhile discussion.” Whatever the supposed inequities, the solution is not to further embed inequality. There is an old saying about two wrongs and what is right. (3) Anonymity is essential to protect fundamental rights and free speech in a global democratic society.Yes, science is a “massively cooperative undertaking,” to quote one of my PubPeer commenters, but that does not mean it is democratic. Science requires substantial training; its foundations are logic and reasoning; it builds on the merits of knowledge and expertise; it is not a ‘one man, one vote’ endeavor with universal enfranchisement. To argue otherwise is manifestly absurd. (4) The focus should be on the message, not on who presents it. Knowing who enters into a debate does matter, if only because the most appropriate response almost always demands some knowledge of the context and the background of the questioner. To mymind anonymity also implies a lack of conviction and a refusal to engage meaningfully. As the psycholinguist Steven Pinker notes (Pinker, 2013, 2014), context is the core of social interaction. (5) Challenging research through the traditional route of publication is time-consuming, onerous, expensive, and excruciatingly slow.Not an argument for anonymity per se, this is a common theme in support of anonymous postpublication review. I agree, it’s easy—and cheap— to pick apart someone else’s work. It is far more difficult to pick up the threads of the work and advance knowledge through research.