Teachers instructions:
Your job is to make sure these pieces stand up to scrutiny. As I mentioned before, it is never pleasant to attack someones work or to receive anonymous criticism, but this process is the only reason why science can claim privileged access to knowledge. Think of it as a game in which both the attacking and the defending teams ultimately work toward the same goal of finding the truth.
Some things to consider when reviewing your peers research:
Does the study ask a clear why? question, and does it provide a convincing answer? Do the conclusions of the authors follow from the facts that they present?
Is the proposed theory general enough? Does it explain things other than the stated question?
Are factual statements supported by evidence where needed? Are there any omissions of facts that might change the conclusions?
Where facts are used to support theories, are alternatives and reference points considered? For example, gun rights advocates often cite studies that show that violent video games may in some cases increase aggression. These studies are used to support a theory that the epidemic of gun violence in America is due to videogames. However, this theory is clearly invalidated by comparing America to many other countries where there is no gun violence even though people play a lot of videogames. Facts are therefore meaningless without context.
In what situation would the authors theory prove false? In other words, could the authors in principle be wrong? This property of scientific theories is known as falsifiability. If a theory cannot in principle be invalidated (falsified), it is not scientific. That does not mean it is automatically wrong, just that it cannot be used to argue with the evidence. For example, many religious theories are unfalsifiable: you cannot prove that there is no God because God is by definition unknowable, and anything that happens in the world is by definition consistent with his existence. Many theories proposed by Donald Trump are also unfalsifiable: you cannot prove him wrong because there will always be an explanation for why he is right. This may seem counterintuitive, but what distinguishes the scientific way of thinking is asking how can I be wrong? instead of how can I be right?
Because peer review is private and anonymous, I can only give you examples from my own experience. I have therefore uploaded to Resources two of my recent scientific papers. For each of the papers, I have included a file with the comments received from reviewers and another with rebuttals of those comments (you will have to do this in the next phase of this project).
With that in mind, RIP THEM APART!
