FLICKR, NEAL PATELThis year three Nobel Prize-winning biologists broke with tradition and published their research directly on the Internet as so-called preprints. Their motivation? Saving time.
Traditionally, scientific studies are published in peer-reviewed journals, which require other scientists to evaluate submitted research to determine its soundness for publication. Peer review is supposed to be a good thing, in theory acting as a stopgap for science that isn’t sound, but it’s increasingly getting a bad rap. Beyond the time it takes to actually get the science done, peer review has become the slowest step in the process of sharing studies. Cycles of peer review-revise-resubmit in biology can span months to more than a year for a single manuscript. This situation hampers progress because it delays how long it takes for breakthroughs to become available to other scientists and the public.
How did things get so bad? It’s all about competition, supply, and ...
