Comment by yqx

While peer review has its problems, I have the feeling that the problems that we're talking about here are not primarily caused by peer review per se, but by a set of perverse incentives that surround academia these days. I'm talking about the "publish or perish" culture that is results from the (sometimes) automated metrics based on which promotions are decided, grants are handed out and academic staff is assessed. Isn't it these incentives that can create attitudes like "Who cares? It's one more publication!" (as quoted by another commenter in this thread). And isn't an overwhelming amount of mediocre journal submissions that result from this one of the reasons peer review is under pressure, qualified reviewers are rare and politics are so common?