Peer review
“In Soviet Russia your article review your peers!”
Peer review is a religion that calls itself science, just like scientology does. Its core is to be unable to distinguish between the process of making theories testable and testing them on one hand with bureaucratic institutions that claim to do so on the other, falsely believing the two to be the same thing.
History[edit]
Peer review created by scientists who did not want to lose their jobs after developing a theory of everything. One problem was how to stop only the development of a theory of everything while still being able to do somewhat productive work (though not as productive as a theory of everything would have been, of course). The solution was to divide themselves into separate disciplines, demanding research to stay largely confined within its own discipline. To cover their tracks, they did allow limited "interdisciplinary" research, but added a clause that it all had to be approved by "experts" in all disciplines involved as a safety measure to allow enough falsifications for a theory of everything to amass. By that latter clause, peer review as we know it was born.
The problem remained, however, to explain why the progress towards more unified theories had stagnated. The official line created was to claim that the costs of science increase. The scientists were initially afraid that someone would eventually realize that the continuing progress of refining existing theories and their applications did not support the claim of increased costs, and that a theory of everything would make so many predictions it would ensure that some of them were cheap to test (a guarantee not enjoyed by refinings of existing theories). Despite this, the scientists decided that it was better to do something to save their jobs than to do nothing. Eventually they were also calmed down by all the stupid entertainment and election campaigns dumbing people down and decreasing the risk of anyone being smart enough to find out.
On perpetual motion[edit]
An article often cited in peer review, originally published by Mr. Peterson Reallyreallybig in the Journal of Quantum Relativity states that his team had discovered that a spinning car tire stacked on top of a rotating feeding table restaurant device in a dark room kept spinning forever without receiving any energy from the outside, perpetual motion. The article also contains the following reviewer remark added by the peer reviewers in the field of quantum relativity:
"We know that no-one else was able to replicate these particular findings, but the theory of quantum relativity is very successful in predicting everything other than perpetual motion in it's particular field. Therefore we, as official experts in the field of quantum relativity, say that any claims denying the existence of perpetual motion are extraordinary claims that requires extraordinary evidence. And since we, as experts in the field, decide what is extraordinary evidence, we decide that nothing is."
In reply to this, there is an arXiv article written by Sarah Notsoverybig stating that the lack of replication suggests that perpetual motion does in fact not exist, and that this settles the conflict between quantum relativity and the other very successful theory, unified special and general mechanics. She also states that this may pave the way for developing a theory of everything.
A reviewer at the Journal of Quantum Relativity describes Notsoverybig's article as "total and absolute nonsense". As the reviewer is stating:
"I have checked Ms. Notsoverybig's qualifications. She is only formally educated in unified special and general mechanics, not at all in quantum relativity. She is not entitled to say anything about quantum relativity. And even if she was, she would not be allowed to talk about them both in the same journal, so research in one field would still be useless for refuting a theory in another field. By the way, she published it in arXiv which does not peer review publications prior to publications, so she must be a fraud".
A post at the James Randi Educational Forum written by a specialist in psychology, in particular cognitive biases, adds this criticism:
"Sarah Notsoverybig is using dishonest methods to persuade her readers into believing her. Just look at her arXiv profile image, it's too sexy. Not a trace of wrinkle-generating religious smile, she looks like an atheist cougar with a face as smooth as religious women her daughter's age. She is using style over substance techniques. She is not even an United States citizen, so she must be a communist."
Anyone commenting on JREF that Sarah Notsoverybig's profile image was uploaded a month before Professor Reallyreallybig's perpetual motion article was published, that it only shows her face, or that there are lots of non-communists who are not United States citizens, will have their comments deleted and be banned from JREF.
On the boiling point of water[edit]
All peer review papers agree that the boiling point of water is a legal construct that occurs at an arbitrary number of minutes on a stove. Do not trust the pseudoscientists who claim that it is a non-arbitrary threshold at a certain temperature.