Peer review vital to avoid cooking up controversy
By Associate Professor Allan Blackman
This article was orignally published in the Otago Daily Times on Monday 6 May 2002.
So just what DO you do all day?” This is a question I’m often asked by people when they find out that the job of a lecturer doesn’t actually involve standing in front of a class lecturing eight hours a day. Well, between preparing lectures, taking laboratory classes and tutorials, assisting students, writing inevitably unsuccessful grant proposals and fighting the ever increasing administrative paper war, I do research. Or, to be completely honest, my students do research. I come up with a few ideas and my students then use these as the basis of their research. And if this research leads to some advancement in knowledge, I then write a paper outlining the results and submit it for publication. But what then happens to this paper? How do people come to read it? Who judges whether it’s worth publishing? And why is publishing it so important anyway?
One of the first documented examples of the announcement of a scientific breakthrough was that of Archimedes jumping out of the bath and shouting “Eureka!”. The way in which scientific advances are now reported is quite different — the printed word is now the preferred method of dissemination, and nudity is rarely involved. Science today is primarily reported through publication in specialist journals that you’re unlikely to find in your local bookstore. In chemistry, there are literally hundreds of such journals, ranging from the prestigious to the routine. A paper submitted to any of these journals does not automatically get published, but must undergo a peer-reviewing system usually involving at least two anonymous referees. The editor of the journal sends these referees a copy of the paper after it is submitted and asks them to comment on, amongst other things, the quality of the science. Should this not be up to scratch, they can recommend that the paper be sent back to the authors for revision (usually involving carrying out further experiments) and resubmission, or indeed be rejected outright for publication. While this system is not perfect, it does ensure that a lot of poor-quality science never gets into the literature. Inevitably however, some does make it through the refereeing process and get published, but this then allows other researchers to repeat the reported experiments and, if they are found wanting, to write a paper refuting and correcting the original publication. Thus, science to a large extent is self-correcting providing the correct procedures are followed.
The most famous example of scientists circumventing the peer-review process came in 1989 with the cold fusion furore. In March 1989, two chemists, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, claimed in a press conference that they had observed a process that would have allowed the production of almost limitless energy from heavy water. Not altogether coincidentally, such a discovery would also have made them very wealthy men indeed (not to mention instant Nobel Laureates), and thus priority was of the essence — there are no prizes for coming second in science. The press conference was held prior to submission of a paper describing their experiments and for this reason, their results could not be immediately confirmed. Over a period of time, it became obvious that there were serious flaws in the original experiments (indeed a graduate of the University of Otago cheemsitry department was instrumental in debunking Pons and Fleischmann) and, despite some diehard believers, cold fusion has pretty much died a death.
Sadly, this circumvention of the peer-review process has happened again in the last fortnight. Scientists from Stockholm University announced at a press conference that foods such as potato chips, French fries and bread have been found to contain high levels of acrylamide, a probable carcinogen (and indeed a compound which gained notoriety in a recent Christchurch poisoning trial). The acrylamide is thought to result from baking or frying foods rich in carbohydrates. This story has since been reported around the world (see the ODT 26/4/02). However, these results have not yet been published in a scientific journal, presumably being deemed “too important” to suffer the inevitable delay that publication entails. But such potentially important findings as these MUST be subject to independent scientific scrutiny prior to the results being released to the general public. Publication in a scientific journal would allow other workers to repeat the experiments and attest to their reproducibility. At the present time, we have no idea if the researchers’ claims are valid — indeed, even the principal author, Associate Professor Margareta Tornqvist admitted that the experiments were not extensive enough to warrant removal of specific food products from sale. This is not the way in which science should be carried out. It is, however, a great way to get lots of publicity.
And if you do want to read a good peer-reviewed paper, I’d recommend one in a forthcoming issue of The Australian Journal of Chemistry titled “Synthesis and structure of the methylated tren derivative N,N,N-tris(2-aminoethyl)-N-methylammonium chloride trihydrochloride” by some guy called Blackman. It’s a cracking read.
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