Reproducibility crisis is what’s posting science. Part of the problem is the almost absolute monopoly of big publishers. Most of the papers they publish are, of course, high-quality stuff. But when it comes to breakthrough achievements like room-temperature superconductors, people start behaving like… people.

I have reviewed multiple Nature and Nature Communications papers in my life. And in many cases I observed weird things. First, the acceptance probability is directly proportional to the last author‘s status (no matter if all three reviews are critical). Second, the Editor often makes decisions in favor of the publishing team. For example, if 3 reviews are critical and 1 is neutral, this doesn’t necessarily mean rejection 🤷‍♂️. The journal would try to negotiate with the reviewers or add more reviewers until the consensus opinion is slightly in favor of the authors.

Alas, there’s certain problems that we all should be aware of when reading yet another cool Nature/Science paper. Funnily, the best papers I have read and reviewed were middle-range (PRL, PNAS, eLife, JCP, etc.).

A true discovery is the one that can be either reproduced or proved wrong by others independently.