In 2018, I talked with Melinda Baldwin (Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland) about a fascinating article she authored entitled “Scientific Autonomy, Public Accountability, and the Rise of “Peer Review” in the Cold War United States” (Isis, volume 109, number 3, September 2018).

In talking again with Melinda this month, we initiated a discussion of whether peer review has a role to play in uncovering scientific fraud. Perhaps in the first blush, one may suggest that peer review is entirely appropriate as a fraud detector, but Melinda suggests this is not the role of peer review

I ask Melinda here to take us through her perspective on the role of peer review in context for scientific fraud from her perspective as a historian of science – a perspective that I hope you agree sheds a clear light on the benefits and limitations of peer review in the scientific endeavor.

I’m going to give an annoying non-answer: it depends on who you ask! Journal editors may have different answers from scientists, who have different answers from members of the public interested in scientific findings.