Post publication peer review of visual stress papers.

In the early days of science, results would be presented 'live' at meetings and the author could receive immediate and sometimes pretty lively feedback on their findings and any shortcomings of their study.

With the growth of science, the number of scientists became too great to fit in any room and findings were published in print journals. Those papers are usually only accepted after they have been peer-reviewed by one or usually two experts in the field rather than a room full of scientists. After that, there might be some correspondence relating to the paper that appeared in subsequent issues of the scientific journal. Then, papers remained fixed and immutable in the literature free to radiate information or misinformation. That said, the majority of scientific papers are soon forgotten or are superseded by subsequent research. The problem was that even if a subsequent debate about the findings had occurred it might not be accessible to a researcher who found and accessed the paper years down the line and researchers were free to misrepresent the findings of the study through citation distortion. That is, funnelling readers away from critical reviews and commentaries.

Traditional peer reviewing happens before a paper is published and positive reviews are a necessary condition for publication in most scientific journals. There are a number of well-documented weaknesses of this process. First, it is not transparent so readers may not have sight of the reviewer's concerns. Second, reviewers are human and often have to review complex studies, unpaid, in their own time and with myriad other pressures and deadlines. It not surprising that serious problems can be overlooked. Finally, sometimes peer reviewers are reluctant to challenge authors who are in a position of power. Although the process is supposed to be anonymous much scientific research occurs in a 'small pond' and the authors may be able to guess the identity of the peer reviewers.

All this means that publication in the peer-reviewed journals is not a guarantee of quality or reliability and the growth of journals in the open-access, author-pays model has meant that pretty much anything can get published. Nonetheless, even in 'respectable journals' there can be a problem with papers well past their 'sell by date' continuing to radiate misinformation and being cited for marketing purposes.

To put it another way what if the two peer reviewers find no problems but the 'roomful of scientists' reading the paper after publication uncover serious shortcomings? This is undoubtedly a problem in the visual stress literature.

Potential solutions
In the web-based publishing age, attempts have been made to rectify this problem so that journals or at least the scientific literature can, to a greater extent, be self-correcting. The challenge is to allow this while keeping the 'nutters' out. For example, the anti-vaccine movement could easily disrupt reputable publishing on the efficacy or safety of vaccines. The other problem is discouraging a 'gotcha' mentality. It isn't a crime, or evidence of wrongdoing, to publish findings that subsequently do not stand up to close scrutiny indeed it is part of the scientific process.
A number of attempts have been to restore some kind of balance which include,
Blogging. There are numerous scientific blogs out there that provide much-needed post-publication commentary on papers. Indeed, that is what this blog tries to do in a modest sort of a way. For much better example see Richard Lehman's humane and well-written blog that appears in the British Medical Journal.  The problem is, however, that a reader discovering a questionable study might be unaware of online criticism in blogs. All the same, I like to think that in a small way they help to keep people honest.
PubPeer-the online journal club. This enables comment on any articles in the published literature and allows direct feedback to authors who can comment if they wish. Unfortunately, it is not easy to link these comments to the original paper. So for example, if you searched and found the original paper you might be unaware of an important dialogue on PubPeer.
Open Review is a tool on ResearchGate which allows authors to publish a more detailed review than is possible in the correspondence section of a journal. In practice, it doesn't really seem to have 'taken-off'.
Retraction watch. The most extreme form of post-publication peer review, results is a retraction. This is usually reserved for scientific fraud and I am certainly not alleging that with any of the visual stress papers. That said, papers can also be retracted when honest mistakes come to light and retraction can even be a sign of scientific integrity. Even retraction does not always solve the problem because papers sometimes continue to be cited long after they have been retracted.

A suggestion
There are papers that are not so egregiously bad that they should be retracted but where major shortcomings in the handling of data, discussion or conclusions have come to light. Where those papers are still being cited or are used for marketing purposes they should be should be modified after publication. In the days of paper journals, this was impossible. You can not call back journals from the shelf, insert new pages rebind the spine, and return them to the library shelf. All this, however, could change with online publishing which allows post publishing peer review in a way that is easily accessible to researchers and would indeed automatically come to light on accessing the paper. I am not calling for some form of post-publication censorship. The original version and the amended version should both be available. And if the authors refuse? In a word retraction.
In the next post some visual stress papers that require modification or retraction.