An Erratic Response to Editorial Oversight

The editors of the the E&G Quaternary Science Journal have flagged Brian John's article with a link to the paper that provides a "critical commentary on this article backed up by new scientific findings" https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2025.105303.

An excellent example of editors helping the scientific discourse and discovery progress. Originally the commentary was going to be published in the journal as a comment but as it grew to encompass new findings it was more appropriate to publish it elsewhere.

Richard E. Bevins, Nick J.G. Pearce, Rob A. Ixer, James Scourse, Tim Daw, Mike Parker Pearson, Mike Pitts, David Field, Duncan Pirrie, Ian Saunders, Matthew Power, The enigmatic ‘Newall boulder’ excavated at Stonehenge in 1924: New data and correcting the record, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Volume 66, 2025, 105303, ISSN 2352-409X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2025.105303. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X25003360)

This will only fuel Brian's erratic thoughts on the value of editors, peer review and self published papers:

One minute he’s brandishing peer review as a shield against pseudoscience; the next, he’s dodging it for the "democratic" joys of ResearchGate, all while lobbing grenades at journals that snub him. It’s a gloriously irregular ride, swinging from high-minded ideals to self-justifying rants, with a constant undercurrent of frustration at the archaeological establishment. Let’s map this journey chronologically, with full quotes in italics and titles as clickable URLs, raising an eyebrow or two along the way. Spoiler: consistency isn’t his forte, but the passion? Pure gold.

We start on Tuesday, 26 April 2011, with John sounding like a guardian of scientific purity in On Pseudoscience: “The following are some of the indicators of the possible presence of pseudoscience. • Evasion of peer review before publicizing results (called 'science by press conference').[41] Some proponents of theories that contradict accepted scientific theories avoid subjecting their ideas to peer review, sometimes on the grounds that peer review is biased towards established paradigms, and sometimes on the grounds that assertions cannot be evaluated adequately using standard scientific methods. By remaining insulated from the peer review process, these proponents forgo the opportunity of corrective feedback from informed colleagues.” Peer review is sacred here – no shortcuts, no press conferences. Noble stuff! But brace yourself; irony’s coming.

Jump to Saturday, 19 December 2015, in The Rhosyfelin Affair: after the famine, the feast, and cracks appear: “because of the way in which the papers have been written but because the journal editors (Chris Scarre and Mike Pitts) have apparently gone along with this comprehensive sidestepping of scientific norms.” Editors are now accomplices in shoddy science. Amusingly, this primes his own leap away from those norms.

By Monday, 12 September 2016, in New online paper: Rhosyfelin is NOT a quarry, John’s gone full rebel: “what to do with the paper as submitted and rejected? There would be no point in sending it to another journal, since it was written FOR the journal Antiquity and would make little sense anywhere else. For better or for worse, I have now published it online as a 'working paper.' This means it becomes available for people too see and to comment on, and I can alter it if anybody points out mistakes or pieces of unfortunate phraseology. Does it have any 'status' or 'academic value'? I leave that for others to judge, but I quite like the 'democratic publishing' process that is now possible, thanks to the web and online publishing platforms like ResearchGate. In the process of making revisions I have taken on board all of the comments from the Antiquity editor and my own referees and those chosen by him -- and I thank all of them for their help in improving the manuscript. It is now as reliable, I think, as anything you are likely to read in a learned journal anywhere.” Oh, the irony! That 2011 warning about dodging peer review? Forgotten. He’s now bypassing journals, calling it “democratic.” Sceptical me wonders: empowerment or just a rejected author’s cope?

The love for open platforms surges in Monday, 2 November 2020, Waun Mawn and Proto-Stonehenge -- all fantasy, no facts: “Democratic peer review, beyond the reach of manipulative and biased editors, is something that I find quite refreshing on the Researchgate platform........” Editors are “manipulative” now, and ResearchGate’s crowd-sourced scrutiny is his new muse. Quite the pivot from peer review as anti-pseudoscience hero.

Yet in Saturday, 20 February 2021, Do you believe in scrutiny?, he nods to Carl Sagan: “One of my heroes, Carl Sagan, wrote a great deal about science and scientific scrutiny, and argued that without careful peer-review and assessment, science is effectively dead. Peer review is not a guarantee of quality. I like publishing on Researchgate and Academia, as long as there is no pretence involved.” Peer review’s vital, but flawed – and he’s still got one foot in ResearchGate’s camp. It's like praising a diet while munching crisps.

By Saturday, 17 July 2021, Archaeology and interpretative inflation — who’s to blame?, he’s spreading the blame: “The authors of journal articles MUST take full responsibility for how they are represented in the media — they after all are the ones who write the abstracts, and who sign off the press releases. So get real, editors — rubbish in rubbish out. Archaeologists are not as innocent as you make out. It’s about time that academic archaeologistrs — and their geologist colleagues — started to take their academic duties and responsibilities seriously by presenting hard evidence (and admitting to controversy where it exists) instead of peddling myths.” Editors and authors are both culprits now. Scepticism spikes: if everyone’s messing up, why not fix it?

In Wednesday, 26 October 2022, Through the two million barrier, John levels the playing field: “I insist that blogs such as mine are no more disreputable than certain academic journals and web sites, given what we know about the corruption that is associated with the peer review process. Some journals maintain high standards, and operate a very good peer review process -- but some peer reviewed articles are so appalling that they do nothing for the reputations of published authors and bring the journals themselves into disrepute.” Blogs as journal peers? A bold claim, but it feels like a defensive jab.

He doubles down in Thursday, 1 December 2022, How to sell a hoax: “it has occurred to me that what you really need, as an ambitious hoaxer, is an academic context in which critical scrutiny is suspended and material gets published because of the reputations of the authors rather than on the basis of scientific or academic worth. The Stonehenge bluestone myth or hoax has been perpetrated not just with the connivance of the Editor of 'Antiquity' journal (see below) but with the active support of scores of other editors and peer reviewers as well. ..the peer reviewers and editors have been negligent in allowing these bits of over-interpretation and 'myth promotion'..” Peer review enabling hoaxes? Spicy, especially from our former pseudoscience foe.

Tuesday, 9 May 2023, The ResearchGate phenomenon, sees him preaching: “ResearchGate does not charge fees for putting content on the site and does not require peer review. As readers will know, I am a great fan of ResearchGate, and I have uploaded many (but not all) of my papers onto the site over the years. The big advantages of ResearchGate, from an author's point of view, are: 3. The ability to publish 'pre-publication' articles or 'working papers' for scrutiny and comment by peers. Such articles may then be corrected or modified on the basis of feedback and comments, and submitted later to journals. This makes the peer review process quite democratic -- unlike the peer review process undertaken by journal editors, which is secretive and often biased, and which can be unreliable. As we know, many articles are published that should never have seen the light of day, and some that are quite worthy are rejected on the basis of biased and ill-informed reviews by anonymous peer reviewers. the peer review process is collapsing, as journal editors find it increasingly difficult to find qualified reviewers for submitted articles. So the idea that journal articles are somehow more reliable and respectable than Researchgate working papers (for example) no longer holds.” ResearchGate’s no-fee, no-peer-review model is his utopia. But wasn’t dodging peer review a pseudoscience red flag? The selective memory is chuckle-worthy.

In Sunday, 19 March 2023, The bluestone papers -- some available, some inaccessible and invisible, he tackles critics: “As faithful readers of this blog will know, over the years we have published scores of comments from a mysterious geologist (let's call him Dr X) on the matter of peer-reviewed publications. He has often suggested, under one pseudonym or another, that the only 'publications' that have any value are those that appear in peer-reviewed specialist journals. Because of that, he suggests, my publications that appear online on the Researchgate and Academia web sites are not worthy of serious academic attention. In effect, he tells me, nobody is going to take me seriously until my evidence and interpretations appear in proper archaeological journals, so I should 'put up or shut up'............. Now of course I fully acknowledge that Dr X has a point. Learned journals are reputed to be the 'gold standard' routes for the dissemination of scientific (and humanities) research, since peer review and editorial scrutiny supposedly guarantee quality, shutting off rubbish that might otherwise appear in the public domain and cause mayhem. That's the theory, anyway. In reality, nonsense articles do appear with frightening regularity in learned journals, since the researchers who submit articles are nowadays allowed to recommend -- or even choose -- their own referees, and since editors who want things published will always find a way, regardless of the quality of the material being considered. This is why fraudulent articles have to be retracted with alarming regularity. But things are not that simple. As we have seen, 'Antiquity' journal, which年生 itself as one of the top-ranked journals, deserves praise for making its articles genuinely open access -- but not from the date of publication. So those who want to read them as soon as they are published are frustrated. Their editorial standards are appalling too, and they have been responsible for publishing the three papers from MPP and his associates which have done most to disseminate the new mythology of the bluestones. As for myself, I fully accept that I could and should have published more in learned journals. I have offered to submit one or two things to archaeology journals over the years, but you will not be surprised to learn that editors (with rare exceptions) will not touch anything from me with a bargepole. They won't even look at a manuscript. I wonder why? So by default I have taken to using Academia and Researchgate as my publishing platform. I like the latter best, because it is so efficient and simple to use.” He concedes journals’ “gold standard” status but cries foul over rejections. Sceptical note: if editors won’t bite, is ResearchGate really a choice or a fallback?

Monday, 1 January 2024, Thought for the New Year: The Death of Science, brings apocalyptic vibes: “Every year we seem to see standards slipping further, with papers published (with massive accompanying PR) which should never have seen the light of day. I wonder, on such occasions, what sort of peer review process operates, and what motivates editors to accept and publish material which is so blatantly defective.” Slipping standards – a classic gripe, but from a self-publisher, it’s peak pot-kettle humour.

In Tuesday, 20 August 2024, The Nature article: where was the publishing threshold?, he zooms in: “The reviewers are clearly influenced by the assurance that the long-distance transport of bluestones over sea or land was exceptional but not impossible, since it is already known (so say the authors) that they moved 80 bluestones over 225 kms from Preseli to Stonehenge. If the referees had been properly informed that the human transport of the bluestones was and is hotly disputed, they would have been much more sceptical about the 750km journey proposed for the Altar Stone. The publication threshold would have been a great deal higher. Almost certainly the authors would not have been allowed to get away with 4 surrogate samples rather than actual ones. And the referees would have looked for much stronger evidence to support the proposition that the Altar Stone could not possibly have come from any of the alternative ORS terranes examined by the authors. All very dodgy indeed..........” Dodgy referees, lax thresholds – his distrust is in overdrive.

Finally, in Sunday, 11 May 2025, The increasingly bizarre defence of Bluestone Orthodoxy, and Sunday, 10 August 2025, My Response to Daw's Desperate Diatribe, he turns on anonymous reviews and even ResearchGate: “Anonymous peer reviews in circumstances such as these are of course completely worthless, and I refuse to engage with this one. If a reviewer does not wish to publish his / her name alongside disparaging and insulting comments, why should anybody take them seriously? What on earth is this article doing on the Researchgate web site? I am contacting the moderators to check out what their policy on AI might be, and to ask for the removal of something that makes no pretence at all to represent original scientific thought or process.” And: “He even asked Researchgate to change the typeface at the head of the article, to make it look as if it was extracted from an academic journal. Cheap stunt. I'm amazed that Researchgate accepted it, given that it contains no scientific content whatsoever.” His beloved platform betrays him with “cheap stunts” and AI nonsense. The irony’s rich – the democratiser doubting the democracy! And, of course, there were no such cheap stunts, as he knows, the site doesn't set the typeface, or judge the content.

John’s arc is a riot: from peer review purist to its fiercest critic, championing self-publishing until it disappoints. It’s passionate, contradictory, and delightfully erratic. One can’t help but grin: if only he’d submit a journal article about it!