Leif Svalgaard on the experience of peer review

I just read one of the E-Journal of Severe Storms Meteorology articles and the online peer review. That was refreshing and much needed after Steve McIntyre’s cogent analysis of climategate at the 4th ICCC brought me to tears. Perhaps there is hope for those of us who truly love of science.
Imagine what a difference a few online reviewer comments to the IPCC about what the implications of the model diagnostic issues were for the model attribution and projection might have meant. None of the reported projections include any attempt to estimate the errors.

.
Reviwer #2 wrote
” We have, quite recently with CRU,
sadly verified what happens to science if original data is not open for all
scientists. ”
It is unfortunate that it took Climategate to get the mainstream scientific community
to recognize that there was something fundamentally wrong with the climate science process.I wonder how well Leif’s papers would have faired if the topic of the paper went against the then prevailing AGW science and it was reviewd by the CRU/IPCC group of reviewers .

Don’t know if this is OT or not, but is there an established relationship between the earth’s magnetosphere intensity and extent and the same parameters for the solar magnetosphere? I have heard the theory that the ‘volcanoes’ on the Jovian/ Saturnian moons are due to induced energies in their core from gravitic and/or magnetic interaction with the planets they circle… does anyone have a gauge of how our magnetosphere is influenced (if at all) by the Sun?
Seems like this might be a factor in amplitude for Svensmarkian atmospheric effects. Any thoughts?

Peer review is done by “conventional scientists who have thouroughy taught biases. If reviewers reserved their reviews to fundamentals (but history shows that even widely accepted “fundamentals” can be wrong, think phlogiston theory of heat, for instance) peer review would be much improved.
As it is now, in most cases, it seems to me no more than “protecting the faith”, whatever the faith is of the peer reviewer.

Leif, I’m not sure that there anything to complain about. Your manuscript covered a controversial subject, you benefited from receiving substantive reviews, one of these reviews was especially critical (which allowed you to revise your manuscript in anticipation of possible published replies), and, of course, your manuscript was accepted by the journal. All of this seems pretty normal and, indeed, healthy.
Jeff

It seems to me that most of commenters here missed the subtle twist in the Leif”s story; he actually wanted to say (at least, judging by his comments in the linked previous thread) – look climate skeptics, all your complaining and about the climate alarmists misusing the peer review process to stifle and censor the debate are bunk, because I also, with my pro AGW views experienced a similar harassment from the reviewers. So stop complaining about Jones, Mann and co trying to oust the incorrigible editors of some journals and “going to town” with reviews, “changing the meaning of the peer review” in order to “keep Michaels and McKitrick out” of IPCC report, and similar charming stuff.
Nothing to see there, a usual practice, people of blood and flesh, making mistakes, reacting emotionally and defensively, being unjust etc. Nothing special. Move on…

—
Verity Jones writes that: “Undoubtedly some reviewers do contribute as much if not more than some co-authors, but how to decide that and if it deserves elevation to co-author status? How to measure it? Also who would decide it? Some authors would be happy, some very unhappy about it.”
I would propose that the decision to accord co-author status should be made by the author(s) responding to the reviewers’ comments. Because these reviewers – during the process of review – retain anonymity, it is not possible for the author(s) of the manuscript to know anything more than the quality of the input.
That would take care of Verity Jones‘ concern about what might happen when an “…eminent professor reviews unknown group’s paper and addition of Prof as author elevates status of unknown group; unknown newbie reviews and makes good contributions to eminent group’s paper and addition as author is very good on their CV.” The paper’s author(s) do not know who a reviewer might be, and thus the reviewer’s contribution stands or falls on its own.
I would trust to the moral and intellectual integrity of the author(s) defending their paper in the review process. If in their opinion there is substantive contribution to the character of their finished product provided by a particular reviewer, that “Reviewer X” should be offered the honor of joining the list of co-authors.
“Reviewer X” has the right, of course, to decline that honor. I suspect that most reviewers would do so, if only because most of us feel damned uncomfortable about taking credit for what (as a review officer myself) I’ve kinda considered the academic equivalent of kibitzing.
Verity Jones goes on to suggest that “Naming the reviewers routinely after publication (at least) and making the reviews available would be positive. ”
I respectfully reject this course of action. First, a review officer’s input upon a manuscript in process might not be substantive in any significant way. The editor with “drop dead” responsibility for the publication of the work may not judge that reviewer’s comments worthy of consideration (reviewers are not infallible). The corresponding author defending the paper may satisfactorily refute the reviewer’s contentions without having to revise the manuscript. The reviewer might pick up an error in the paper that would be embarrassingly detrimental to the presentation of the research but which in truth amounts to nothing more than a sophisticated proofing glitch – and that sure as hell doesn’t rise to the level at which a conscientious professional would hold that he’s done anything worth real credit.
Second, “<i.making the reviews available” would oblige editors, reviewers, and authors to put too damned much time and effort into polishing these exchanges because they must be conscious that their comments will be “on your permanent record” elements. The inhibitory effect of such an expectation must inevitably be bloody awful, making the review and response process less effective. Moreover, I cannot think of a more noxious way to make life impossible for journal editors, who (as Verity Jones had observed) have more than enough difficulty recruiting and maintaining cadres of qualified peer review officers.
I would suggest instead that the masthead of each edition of an academic periodical might credit specific reviewers with mention as associate editors at the discretion of the editor-in-chief, according to his/her contribution to the work in that edition.
This would give the journal’s editor a “carrot” with which to acknowledge particularly effective and conscientious work contributed by review officers in specific instances. Right now, what a lot of journals do is list a boatload of people many of whom put in so little time or effort that it sometimes takes months or years before anyone at the periodical realizes that they’re retired, dead, or eloped to Guatemala and dropped off the ‘Net.
Be nice if credit were given only where credit is due.
—

—
My congratulations to carlbrannen for having gotten his “first paper past a contentious peer review.
As in the literal loss of one’s virginity, it’s always the first time that seems the messiest, most stressful, and most detrimental to one’s sense of dignity and self-worth.
Well, it does if you’re a Catholic. But anyway….
I’d like to suggest that it might be helpful if we were to adopt a sort of giri-and-gimu” custom in which credit as a published author literally obliges an individual to serve the journal in question as a peer review officer in his/her discipline henceforth.
This would not exclude from editorial consideration the consultation of professional peers without such proximal credit, of course, but it should fatten up the options available to these editors.
“We published your paper on the effects of paroxysmal defenestration on the mating behavior of Norwegian rats,” goes the e-mail message, “and now you gotta do peer review on the attached manuscript regarding the analyses of sperm counts among adolescent males addicted to bungee-jumping. Get your comments back to us by X date or sooner, please.”
What could be more equitable?
—