Truth in Science Publishing: A Personal Perspective

Abstract
Scientists, public servants, and patient advocates alike increasingly question the validity of published scientific results, endangering the public’s acceptance of science. Here, I argue that emerging flaws in the integrity of the peer review system are largely responsible. Distortions in peer review are driven by economic forces and enabled by a lack of accountability of journals, editors, and authors. One approach to restoring trust in the validity of published results may be to establish basic rules that render peer review more transparent, such as publishing the reviews (a practice already embraced by some journals) and monitoring not only the track records of authors but also of editors and journals.

Citation
Südhof TC (2016) Truth in Science Publishing: A Personal Perspective. PLoS Biol 14(8): e1002547. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002547

Copyright
© 2016 Thomas C. Südhof. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.