New Delhi, India: According to eminent scientist Shekhar Mande, the peer review system – or the examination of academic work by others in the same profession – has broken down because authors can simply pay to get published.
According to the former director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), even reputable online publications charge authors substantial fees to publish their scientific discoveries.
According to Mande, just a limited group of editors and peer reviewers were brought in to examine this work for a scholarly publication. According to him, this put a lot of subjectivity and personal bias into the system.
Mande mentioned the ancient skill of peer-reviewing. "Traditionally, knowledge was progressed by learned individuals gathering together and debating current facts... If innovative material was suggested, it was also argued in a fraternity of well-known people."
He cited the universities of Nalanda and Takshashila in ancient India as examples of peer evaluations, where knowledgeable individuals convened to debate whether to accept a new discovery.
But, according to Mande, the concentration in the last 100 years has been on printing scientific findings. "A person who has discovered something new wants to share it with the public by submitting a written article to a journal," he continued.
"The magazine has one or a group of editors... one of them would make the choice on this." It would also be peer-reviewed by two or three people.
As a result, disputes among many intelligent people have been limited to the ideas of only one or two individuals. Human opinions, as we all know, are always subjective."
When new ideas emerged from India or other lesser-known countries, Mande remarked, the West was slow to accept them.
He cited an infamous research that suggested hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial medication, may help cure Covid. The Lancet journal published it before retracting it.
"That particular work would not have passed a peer-review mechanism in any other magazine," Mande added. But what were the justifications for a journal like The Lancet to publish it? "We have no idea."
He went on to say that many reputable journals throughout the world are constantly retracting manuscripts that were previously published because they were not properly reviewed.
This viewpoint was recently published in Current Science by Mande.
If you want to be a dreamer, study science.'
Science, according to Mande, is for dreamers and individuals who desire to offer new ideas to knowledge.
"You are most suited to scientific work if you are driven by a desire to contribute new ideas to the world," he stated.
Mande said scientists' morale needed a boost when he took over as director general of the CSIR in 2018.
"Moreover, the relationship with industry has been deteriorating," he remarked, adding that he has been working to restore it.
"Continuous advancement into new terrain is a fundamental component of science. Another is that we translate it for the benefit of the public," Mande explained.
Is everything in terms of CSIR stipends in order?
The scientist also responded to reports that PhD candidates at CSIR facilities had gone months without getting grants.
"When I was director general, it was a source of considerable shame to me that the fellowships were not being disbursed on schedule to many students," he stated.
He claimed that the many processes including collecting attendance certificates contributed to the monthly stipend delays, but that many of the delays also occurred when students switched universities.
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