Review This, Peer

By now reader(s) have probably heard of the hoax/study perpetrated/conducted by three academics. These intrepid academics are James Lindsay (Mathematics), Peter Boghossian (philosophy) and Helen Pluckrose* (English lit/history).

The fearless Robert Stacey McCain discusses the matter here.

For those who don't know, three profs faked a bunch of papers and got them published in unheard of and unread academic journals.

The best part? These journals were 'peer reviewed'.

God we love the cult of the 'peer reviewed' journal.

Does anyone not see the flaw in having one's academic and professional peers review your work?

So these journals just accepted these papers without due diligence. We should say we're not surprised.

We've published a hundred or so magazine articles and in all that time only once were we challenged about factual accuracy.**

Reader(s) will notice that our intrepid academics are all scholars of legit fields. You know, like math, and stuff. While we have no use for philosophy, we recognize the need for it.

Our friend William Katz's rule of thumb is that if a field has 'studies' at the end of it, it's not a real field of study.***

*Great name, we're stealing it for Palmerston's War.
**Way back in 2004, we wrote an article about Alfred the Great. The editor wasn't so sure Alfred used his burghs for what we said Alfred used his burghs for. We insisted Alfred used his Burghs for what we said Alfred used his Burghs for. Here it is, thanks De re Militari!

***We have an MA in American Revolutionary STUDIES, so whoops.