Climate Audit pointed out an interesting article by Bruce McCullough and Ross McKitrick entitled Check the Numbers: The Case for Due Diligence in Policy Formation. They point out a common fallacy ”˜peer reviewed’ journals is that no one checks the data. This becomes more than a academic journal problem when the report is used to formulate public policies.
Empirical research in what are commonly called ”˜peer-reviewed’ academic journals is often used as the basis for public policy decisions, in part because people think that ”˜peer-review’ involves checking the accuracy of the research. That might have been the case in the distant past, but times have long since changed. Academic journals rarely, if ever, check data and calculations for accuracy during the review process, nor do they claim to. Journal editors only claim that in selecting a paper for publication they think it merits examination by the research community.