Peer Review per Do-While Jones

Over at "Science Against Evolution", Do-While takes a stab at explaining the slippery slope of peer review. In the process he makes the following comparison of engineers vs. academics:

..."The longer an individual remains in an academic environment, the less capable that individual is of independent thought. The only way to succeed in academia is to be part of the Good Old Boy Network.

Engineers who work in the real world have a different view of truth than professors who live in the ivory tower of academia.

Suppose ten engineers say that a bridge design is sound, but one engineer disagrees. They build the bridge, and it falls down. The one engineer who recognized the design flaw was right. If the bridge stands, then the lone engineer who said it wouldn’t work was wrong. Truth is based on experimental reality.

In the academic world, truth is determined by consensus. If ten professors say one thing, and one professor disagrees, the one who disagrees is wrong by definition. That’s why nobody wants to hold the minority opinion."

Actually in the engineering world the dissenting engineer would hold sway. This is because designs are submitted to design review teams, staffed by old hand, experienced engineers who are challenged with verifying the the design. No design would be built if one of the design team found a design fault. This might sound similar to peer-review, but it is not, for the reasons stated by Do-While Jones above.

In peer review, a dissenting reviewer would not last long because the majority rules; these days science is that which the most scientists believe. Slight paradigm shifts might be OK; Paradigm crashes are not OK, because, as Do-While points out, there are careers at stake. So the currency of science is determined by the power state of the human condition: politics. For one to claim that this is not the case is to show that one is not paying attention.

Moreover, for forensic sciences that remain in a perpetual state of hypothesis, there is no pressure to move into experiments since none are possible. This alleviates any need for tolerating deviant inputs. And when one's personal paradigm (worldview) is entirely dependent upon the stability of the well-invested hypothesis paradigm, intellectual stasis and stagnation are guaranteed.

In engineering, design testing and verification would be done until the truth is determined; one single engineer would bring this investigation about, because it is not about politics, it is about verity. All team members are vested in finding the verifiable material facts and creating a demonstrable congruence between intellect and material reality.

There's a gaping, polar difference.