Broken Science? You Only Need Post-Publication Peer Review to Fix It

International audienceAs STS scholars and historians of science have repeatedly shown, scientific knowledge has been produced, since the 17th century, through a collective process, involving specific technologies used to perform experiments, to regulate modalities for participation of peers or lay people, and to ensure validation of the facts and publication of major results. In such a world, various forms of misconduct – from subtle plagiarism to the entire fabrication of faked data and results – have largerly been considered as minimal, if not inexistent. Yet, some “betrayers of the truth” have been alleged in many fraudulent cases at least from the 1980s onward, and the phenomenon is currently a growing concern in many academic corners – scientific journals, funding bodies, learned societies, analysts. For example, the reveal of manipulated publications behind the scenes by the pharmaceutical industry has strengthened the doubts about the reliability of “gold standards” of proof, while the disappointing results of specifically designed studies have led to a replication crisis in some experimental disciplines (psychology, medicine). In this context, post-publication peer review (PPPR) has often been lauded as a solution, its promoters valuing public debate over in-house validation by journals and the judgment of a crowd of peers over the ones of a few selected reviewers. This presentation focuses on one controversial PPPR website, PubPeer, founded in 2012, enabling anonymous comments on published papers, in which peers voice their concerns on a result, a method, or a figure and ask original authors or other commentators to discuss them. We will analyze the values endorsed by founders and commentators, how they defend anonymity (including for libel cases in courts) while asking for transparency in science, how “debunked articles” leading to corrections or retractions are used as proofs for the need of such a web platform. Conversely, we will discuss the criticisms they face: valuing policing over discussion, lack of moderation, lack of transparency, distrust of self-regulation practices of established journals and publishers. We will conclude on the effects of such a brand of open science and how it is itself regulated through technical devices, ethical norms and trials