Nature reviewers flagged core flaw in 'science less disruptive' paper pre-publication
RexDouglass · x · 2026-08-17
@svalver dug into the peer-review file of the 2023 Nature paper claiming science and technology are becoming less disruptive (Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time), and found an awkward fact: reviewers had actually identified the paper's central methodological problem before publication — yet it was published anyway and went on to become a highly cited work.
Rex Douglass quips that basic statistics is apparently too hard for Nature, and that peer review is "transparently dumb": the flaw was spotted, but still couldn't stop a flawed conclusion from going to print.
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