Hah! Indeed it would.

But there is much about the structure of the way science that gets done that incentives bad behavior. Funding structures that award money to those that already agree with the desired conclusion, journals whose peer review process is a joke and succesful careers based on publishing volume all seem to be problems.

A good system is one in which even the bad actors end up doing the right thing, modern science sometimes feels like the opposite. Given how much we are actually learning in spite of all that I would say that scientists as a group have pretty good personal responsibility.

“So if peer review isn’t adding value, what would?”

Personal responsibility.

It seems more and more obvious that peer review as presently performed is not improving the quality of published papers.

I suppose that wouldn’t be an issue if everyone agreed peer review adds no value, but the problem seems to stem from the supposed legitimacy garnered as a result of peer review. Authors often trumpet the fact that their papers have been ‘peer reviewed’ as though this in and of itself proves their conclusions.

So if peer review isn’t adding value, what would?