Tinker, tailor, publisher, spy: how Robert Maxwell created the academic peer review system
Publication of research results, theoretical propositions and scholarly essays is not a free-for-all. As shown by the dogmatism around climate change and Covid-19, sceptics struggle to get papers in print. The gate-keeper is the peer-review system, which people take for granted as a screening process to ensure rigour in scientific literature. But it is not …