Peer-reviewed versus Tweet/Substack
For the academics out there
Just a short note to explain why I have not authored a peer-reviewed publication re Covid, and have instead placed “wasted” effort on social media work.
For most readers, the answer will be obvious - the format of peer review tends to place obstacles on unusual ideas seeing the light of day; audiences tend to be small; paywalls may exist; a lot of labour to cross-check references etc.
There are other advantages to social media which are less plainly obvious. A joy of social media is interaction and exchange of ideas. While this also exists in academics, it can be…well…also an experience of being mothballed. Those of you who have ever devoted heart and soul in writing a thesis likely know what I mean.
For some readers who belong to the world of academia - a very shy group of correspondents for some reason - the use of social media to air ideas to the general public before getting them approved via professional colleagues is likely seen as breaking an unwritten protocol.
What is this protocol?
Don’t air your dirty laundry in public, I suspect…
Peer review used to be running your work by a very well educated, perceptive group of experts in the subjects covered in the article, to catch glaring omissions, careless mistakes, subtle things you may have missed, opportunities for improving or testing the argument.
Nowadays, they appear to be an opportunity for the Keepers of the Official Narrative (The High Church Censors) to scan for anything that might negatively affect their patrons and apply some credible language as an excuse to block it. Maybe that's an unfair generalization, but it has certainly been applied in the current pandemic and in several other areas I've read about, especially in areas in which food & drug corporations fund the institutions.
Oh, also, an organic chem professor of mine (years ago) said -- as he was writing a long reaction sequence on the board in front of a large lecture hall full of students -- that he counted on the "collective genius" of the over 300 students attending to catch any mistakes he might have made.
One might consider the tens of thousands that might see your social media-published work could provide the same service. A LOT of people with different educations and experiences noticing things you might have missed. But without the lab coats and mandate from on high.