Publish or Perish: A population-dynamics model of the corruption of peer review

Abstract

Peer review is commonly treated as a mechanism of quality control. This article examines what happens when participants are split between two groups. Explicators assess whether submissions present logic-based arguments (whether deductive, inductive or abductive), independently of whether they agree with the reasons or the conclusion. Interpreters assess submissions according to their outlook. Their employment of logic is opportunistic, as a means of presenting their own views, but not as a means of assessing others' views. Using a deterministic population-dynamics model of iterative games of "Publish or Perish," this article shows how this asymmetry permits interpreters to increase their population share even when they begin as a small minority. It compares fixed and survivor-drawn reviewer panels, alternative replenishment rules, hostile explicator responses, generational differences in ratios, and different panel sizes. Under survivor-drawn review, explicator hostility to interpreters produces an unstable equilibrium at an explicator share of $q^* = 2 - \sqrt{3} \approx 0.2679$: below this threshold, interpreters can survive without explicator cooperation and continue toward dominance. The threshold is not universal, however. Exogenous replenishment in favour of explicators can eliminate the point of no return, and sufficiently lagged, generational replenishment can permit explicators to recover after it has apparently been crossed. The model therefore identifies not only a mechanism by which peer review becomes corrupted, but also the institutional conditions determining whether that corruption becomes self-sustaining or reversible.