Okay guys, let's try this again since JGC was trying to pull the wool over your eyes again.

All peer-review means is that another group outside your own group, termed "peers", reviews the journal. Without that all it means is that you don't need a separate group to give your the thumbs up that every checks out. It's sort of similar to whether the FDA inspects your lab or not. All this means is that the FDA doesn't need to inspect your "lab" meaning journal here via analogy. If you don't believe this, but enjoy eating out of JGC's hand all the time like gullible "people" (had to bite lip really quick to avoid name calling) check this out where they still review the journal:

<link>

Scroll to the bottom right where it says "Reviewer's home".

Okay, then check out the journal's abstract summary here:

<link>

"Immunization with a number of different vaccines, including live and killed vaccines, has been linked to the development of insulin-dependent (type 1) diabetes in humans and animals. Multiple different mechanisms have been proposed to explain the association between vaccines and diabetes. The current paper reviews multiple different mechanisms by which vaccines are known to manipulate the immune system and can induce an autoimmune disease such as type 1 diabetes. Genetic variability may determine which of these pathways, or possible other pathways, predominate in an individual following immunization."

This is a review article! That means it's reviews a bunch of stuff found in other journals! You guys are SO gullible it's just funny. And when JGC says it, you guys eat it up without question. Is that faith or what! Totally opium of the masses there!

;)

Definition exerpts of from wikipedia:

"Peer review requires a community of experts in a given (and often narrowly defined) field, who are qualified and able to perform impartial review."

That means a group other than your own group - hence your group "peers". It doesn't mean "colleague".

And you treat peer-review like a god but:

"Although generally considered essential to academic quality, peer review has been criticized as ineffective, slow, and misunderstood".

Another exerpt:

"Pragmatically, peer review refers to the work done during the screening of submitted manuscripts and funding applications. This process encourages authors to meet the accepted standards of their discipline and prevents the dissemination of irrelevant findings, unwarranted claims, unacceptable interpretations, and personal views. Publications that have not undergone peer review are likely to be regarded with suspicion by scholars and professionals."

Also,

"In the case of proposed publications, an editor sends advance copies of an author's work or ideas to researchers or scholars who are experts in the field (known as "referees" or "reviewers"), nowadays normally by e-mail or through a web-based manuscript processing system. Usually, there are two or three referees for a given article."

So you see, it's refereed. With the Med. Hyptheses journal it's still reviewed, it's just not refereed.

Moreover, peer review doesn't necessarily mean that anything is changed:

"Referees' evaluations usually include an explicit recommendation of what to do with the manuscript or proposal, often chosen from options provided by the journal or funding agency. Most recommendations are along the lines of the following...blah blah."

"During this process, the role of the referees is advisory, and the editor is typically under no formal obligation to accept the opinions of the referees."

Advisory! But is sure is funny when the group mind lectures me as if I'm in a secret den of scientists! (If you ARE scientists, you're certainly not very good ones.)

More exerpts for fun:

"There is usually no requirement that the referees achieve consensus."

"Traditionally, reviewers would remain anonymous to the authors, but this standard is slowly changing. In some academic fields, most journals now offer the reviewer the option of remaining anonymous or not, or a referee may opt to sign a review, thereby relinquishing anonymity. Published papers sometimes contain, in the acknowledgements section, thanks to anonymous or named referees who helped improve the paper."

Hmm, peer-review standards are changing? But no, YOU GUYS KNOW EVERYTHING! Lol.

Peer-review has weaknesses too:

"The peer review process may suppress dissent against "mainstream" theories.[11][12][13] "

Does...this mean you guys seek to suppress dissent? JGC? You guys need vaccines like crack cocaine or something? Lol. Got a commercial stake in it? Stock? What is it about your guys that your eat up everything JGC says without question? Is it like Dracula mesmerism or something? Why do you guys always make a habit of constructing a group mind out of this regard and hide behind, supporting each other, stroking each other's egos? It's like a damn cult! It's funny as hell!

"Reviewers tend to be especially critical of conclusions that contradict their own views, and lenient towards those that accord with them."

Hmm, sounds like your group mind. Did any of you at least read the abstract? The part where it said it was a review article? Obviously not.

Thought I'd come back for one more thing. Oh, by all means though you'll need to respond because I'm making you all look bad - REALLY bad. First I cite vaccine evidence and logic, then you try to cover it up by trying to say the journal is verboten lacking peer-review, and then you try to lecture to me as a group mind the peer-review process shaking your finger at me. Funny thing is, you're ignorance-slip is showing: the journal is obviously still reviewed as I proved but it just means they don't use referees as a "peer-reviewed" official term (but go ahead and deny the link - typical tactic). But no, be a predictable group mind and and come up with some new BS and continue to deceptively twist the semantics and context. Moreover, peer-review is simply advisory anyways. This suggests that peer-review does not necessarily offer itself as a filter that you guys seem to fain interest in. And worse still for all you Grima Wormtongues supporting the "white wizard": you didn't look up the abstract-summary via the citation. You should have noted that it was totally a review article, which um, discusses and cites other journal articles that HAVE been peer-reviewed. It's ironic that one poster suggested that I was the one dumber than a mastodon, you know, since we're all using the label tactic - again! *sighes* What's wrong with you people? No go ahead, I'll take you all on - it's fun watching you squirm and try to cover things up, acting as if you were all omniscient scientist gods! Let's be frank though, for whatever reasons, you find JGC more popularly politically. That's why you construct a group mind - you're not sure how to respond, but you know you want to object, so you'll stroke each other's egos. But your construct has failed. The biggest problem with your objections is that it's a review article, which discusses and cites other peer-reviewed articles. Like Isengaard, your argument has fallen, crashed, and burned!

I have a report on my alien abduction....that I want "peer reviewed" by a bunch of my peers in alien abduction community.

Ha! Deny it then!!!!

Seems to me like someone has become just a bit obsessed here. What's wrong pooky, nobody accepting that you are the ultimate expert on.......everything?

From the University of Texas' at Austin Life Sciences Department:

Peer Review is a process that journals use to ensure the articles they publish represent the best scholarship currently available. When an article is submitted to a peer reviewed journal, the editors send it out to other scholars in the same field (the author's peers) to get their opinion on the quality of the scholarship, its relevance to the field, its appropriateness for the journal, etc. Publications that don't use peer review (Time, Cosmo, Salon) just rely on the judgement of the editors whether an article is up to snuff or not. That's why you can't count on them for solid, scientific scholarship. Note:This is an entirely different concept from "Review Articles".

And from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors:

Peer review is the critical assessment of manuscripts submitted to journals by experts who are not part of the editorial staff. Peer review can therefore be viewed as an important extension of the scientific process. Although its actual value has been little studied and is widely debated, peer review helps editors decide which manuscripts are suitable for their journals and helps authors and editors to improve the quality of reporting. A peer-reviewed journal submits most of its published research articles for outside review. The number and kinds of manuscripts sent for review, the number of reviewers, the reviewing procedures, and the use made of the reviewers’ opinions may vary. In the interests of transparency, each journal should publicly disclose its policies in its Instructions to Authors.

Here's what a handy online dictionary says, Patrick:

Main Entry: peer review Function: noun Date: 1969

: a process by which something proposed (as for research or publication) is evaluated by a group of experts in the appropriate field

— peer–review transitive verb

Note the fact that those who do the reviewing need to be "experts in the appropriate field." They're not simply "..another group outside your own group." If that were the case, a paper on vaccines might well be reviewed by a gaggle of attorneys, or a football team.

Scientifically speaking, I believe they're generally people with graduate degrees who work in the field in question, and are often academics.

Hope that helps.

Oh Patrick, if anyone's ignorance is showing, its your own. Standard invitation (3rd time now) -- please state degrees and qualifications and personal experience publishing in or refereeing for peer-reviewed research journals.

Otherwise, quit whining. You can always tell yourself in the mirror that you are the cleverest of them allllllll if it soothes your little ego, or make a wax-doll of your FB enemies and stick pins in them.......but no, in the real world of research "oh but its REVIEWED, its just not PEER-reviewed" doesn't cut it. Not for getting you a research-related job or keeping it. Not for getting you promotion. Not for getting you tenure. Not on your NIH biosketch. And not on your vita -- where you are expected to list the PEER-reviewed versus the 'reviewed but just not peer-reviewed' stuff separately

But that's okay, you can still be the cleverest of them alllll inside your own little head.

Patrick, this is pathetic.

What if it is not about ego ? What if it is about a deep down, in your gut, belief ? A belief that something is wrong ? smells fishy ..... not quite right .... doubtful ...... and low and behold no one agrees, they shout and scream when I bring the subject up , in my fashion, they say I am a fool etc etc etc but ..and yet ... that voice within tells me I am right and they are not...........................­........ it is hard to find the truth though with all that screaming and hulliballooo' ing

:) xxxx 'nought wrong with questioning

Well, I guess you'd have to tell us why your 'deep down gut feeling' is more valid than -- oh, say, Nano's deep-down gut feeling that belief in Jesus aka Christianity is the ONLY true path to salvation! I bet he also feels that he is screaming into the wilderness and being ignored by the likes of us even while the voice in his head tells him he is totally right.

Gut feelings are well and good, but we need to figure out what to do when A's gut feelings and B's gut feelings are different.....which one do we believe ?

It isn't, but ..... :) tomorrow xxx

I like Navy, Brighton, and Santa Monica.

Couldn't find Wigan, and Steel just isn't what it used to be.

You're kind of stuck on that aren't you. Makes for good entertainment value though.

"Standard invitation (3rd time now) -- please state degrees and qualifications and personal experience publishing in or refereeing for peer-reviewed research journals."

You're kind of stuck on that aren't you? It might matter if it was all that relevant but I don't see that it is.

"Otherwise, quit whining."

I'm not whining with this post? I'm just pointing out a few flaws? You gotta or problem with that as you whine yourself? Would you like some cheese with that whine? *snickers*

"You can always tell yourself in the mirror that you are the cleverest of them allllllll if it soothes your little ego, or make a wax-doll of your FB enemies and stick pins in them"

Lol. Those are you're thoughts apparently, not mine.

""oh but its REVIEWED, its just not PEER-reviewed" doesn't cut it."

Sure it cuts the mustard. If it didn't cut it, scientists wouldn't be reading Med. Hypo., nor would they construct review articles citing peer-reviewed material for their readers.

"Not for getting you a research-related job or keeping it. Not for getting you promotion. Not for getting you tenure. Not on your NIH biosketch. And not on your vita -- where you are expected to list the PEER-reviewed versus the 'reviewed but just not peer-reviewed' stuff separately"

Come on? You're treating this peer-review stuff too much like the bible as an ultimately authority. Not being peer-reviewed doesn't invalidate anything. It just means it's not "peer-reviewed"? Lol. It's like saying that a book isn't white? So what!? It's still reviewed just not refereed!

"But that's okay, you can still be the cleverest of them alllll inside your own little head."

So prove you're superior by saying I'm right about something? Then you'll be more clever than I am? Otherwise you're not and conversely, for you, it IS about being more clever. After all, you're a peer-reviewing god - you've played that card so many times! You sure for YOU it's not about being more clever? And you speak of my little head? What about when you can peer-review and referee without a science degree, as you so stated? How does that work out in your mind?