Readers of this blog were alerted early to the gathering storm with the post “Peer-censorship and scientific fraud.” Now the influential New York Times has a Health editorial on the topic entitled For Science’s Gatekeepers, a Credibility Gap.

Virtually every major scientific and medical journal has been humbled recently by publishing findings that are later discredited. The flurry of episodes has led many people to ask why authors, editors and independent expert reviewers all failed to detect the problems before publication.

The article is strong on problems by weak on solutions, e.g.:

Any influential system that profits from taxpayer-financed research should be held publicly accountable for how the revenues are spent. Journals generally decline to disclose such data.

I will add some links to commentary below as they become available.