General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Either you believe in the scientific method or you don't [View all]cab67
(3,015 posts)Science is a collective effort. Consensus is built around a body of peer-reviewed literature. The opinions of "great men" might carry great weight, but if someone is wrong, he or she is wrong. People held Einstein, Darwin, and Newton in seriously high esteem during their lifetimes, but their mistaken views on (respectively) quantum mechanics, inheritance, and alchemy were called "mistaken" (or worse) regardless.
I think of peer review the way Winston Churchill viewed democracy - it's the worst possible means of quality control in the sciences, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time. In spite of its weaknesses - prominent people sometimes do exert more influence than they should, arguments running against the consensus sometimes do have a harder time of getting published, and biases (sometimes verging on sexism and racism) can arise, especially when reviews are not double-blind - it works. I say this having been an author, editor, and reviewer. Moreover, given the huge number of journals out there, it's a LOT easier to publish bad science than to suppress good work.