>>13922347>good faith peer reviewConsider a few hypothetical scenarios:
A reviewer has a family and a mortgage, and a position in a university. Their research is funded by the state in a liberal democracy, and by large private institutions.
-a paper proves that intelligence is subject to nurture but with a hard upper bound determined by genetics, and that the average bound varies significantly by race
-a paper proves that circumcision causes extreme trauma and psychological damage
-a paper proves that the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is beneficial to humans
-a paper proves that climate change is not due to human intervention to a significant degree
-a paper proves that gender and/or racial affirmative action of any kind disrupts meritocracy to the point that the system fails
-a paper proves that fetuses are as sentient as newborns
-a paper proves that homosexuality is an acquired and reversable state which reduces life satisfaction
-a paper proves that the holocaust was not the deliberate systematic extermination of 6 million jews but the death of 600000 jews in labour camps from typhus and hunger after supply lines were cut
-a paper proves that the moon landings were faked
-a paper proves that medications owned by a funding institution were designed to cause diseases cured by other medications owned by same
etc.
What would an honest reviewer who loves their family do? What should they do? Lose everything by siding with a heretical thesis? Or keep paying their mortgage and feeding their kids?
Seriously, what is the alternative?
You lose everything for nothing, or inflate your skepticism and gloss over your doubts to save everything dear to you. How is that a good system?
