Will we march to utopia, or be dragged there? Past failures and future hopes for publishing our science.

Comments on an article by Brian A. Nosek and Yoav Bar-Anan (see record 2012-24018-001). Nosek and Bar-Anan present a compelling indictment of current publication practices in many scientific fields, with particularly dire consequences for progress in our own field of psychology. The success of each of the reforms Nosek and Bar-Anan propose will be determined by two things, how clearly we as scientists can see a benefit for ourselves, individually, in the reform and how strongly the politicians and agencies who fund us see problems in the current state of publishing that must be solved by regulation from outside. Nosek and Bar-Anan's points, in the long debate on anonymous review are well taken. However, if reviews are published, anonymously or not, readers are bound to find flaws in their logic or methodological critique. Publishing peer reviews leads inexorably to the next stage, open and continuous peer review. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)