So far we have dived into the historical origins of the peer review concept and the earliest attempts at an external referee system used by the Royal Society. Even in this early exploration, we have encountered issues with peer review that persist today.  The first part of this series concluded with the beginnings of peer review, but we still hadn’t arrived at peer review as we know it in the 21st century.

Peer review is a staple of science, a seemingly inescapable barrier that every researcher must cross in order to share their work with the world. The internet is awash with complaints about Reviewer #2 and long, drawn out review processes. Despite this, most academics believe peer review to be a gold standard process that protects the scientific record from poor quality studies.

Being a researcher implies a long stretch of studies at the university to specialize in a certain field. To me personally, it felt like I just kept studying and studying, year after year, and… here I am.  One day, when I was 18 I went to the university and I am still there. I have come to realize that I never really mentally switched from being a student to being a professional or having a job.

Before starting - what is Omics Data? Omics data represent massive volumes of information on genomes, epigenomes, transcriptomes — you name it. They’ve become a favorite among researchers, reviewers, and publishers. But at what cost? I’m not even talking about the huge financial investments it takes to generate good quality data with proper replicates.

The “publish or perish” culture pushes researchers to publish papers (regardless of the state of their research) for career survival. Academic jobs are tied to people’s publication records; and although change is happening, it is at a glacial pace. Since the system is gamified in this way, people are tempted to play. And they play to “win”.  This leads to many side effects that distort the way science is done.

Two years ago at a conference, I was talking to a professor whom I deeply respect, telling him that I honestly do not know where my home is. I left the country I grew up in when I was 18, spent 11 years in another one pursuing my studies, moved again to a new country to get the postdoc experience I wanted, and here I was 7 years later, moving yet again to another country for academic reasons.

For my very first blog post on this platform, I got inspired by the name of the blog support system itself— Ghost . It made me reflect on a phenomenon that many early-career researchers quietly experience: ghost and ghosted authorship in scientific publications. Let’s plot the scene: You’re a PhD student or a young postdoc, and your manuscript is finally ready for submission.

I know you are conditioned to think that what you are researching has to be novel.  But let’s think about it for a second.

Act I: Enchantment It usually starts early on.  You are looking at something. A couple of bugs on the ground. A star in the sky. The veins on a leaf. The stream of bubbles in your soda. You are just observing. But then you start wondering. What exactly is this? You are curious, you want to know more. How does it work? Is it known? You ask questions.. that lead to more questions.

In the 20 ^th century, Tom Clancy’s espionage novels became so popular that his publisher started hiring ghostwriters to respond to the popular demand. But in science, such a thing would be unthinkable, right? No one should contribute to a research paper and not receive their due credit. In peer reviewing, however… Everyone in academia knows it happens, but it’s treated like the problem that-shall-not-be-named.

Just like the anonymous commenter on a reddit thread or a social media post, I think the anonymous reviewer suffers from the “disinhibition effect” that comes with knowing that they cannot be identified. A reviewer “persona” is created and suddenly gives them the option to be especially harsh (sometimes cruel…). Would they have made the same comment face to face, at a conference, for example?