Prepublication peer review should be abolished. We consider the effects that such a change will have on the social structure of science, paying particular attention to the changed incentive structure and the likely effects on the behaviour of individual scientists. We evaluate these changes from the perspective of epistemic consequentialism. We find that where the effects of abolishing prepublication peer review can be evaluated with a reasonable level of confidence based on presently available evidence, they are either positive or neutral. We conclude that on present evidence abolishing peer review weakly dominates the status quo.

中文翻译：

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同行评审是个好主意吗？

应取消出版前同行评审。我们考虑这种变化将对科学的社会结构产生的影响，特别关注变化的激励结构以及对个体科学家行为的可能影响。我们从认知后果主义的角度评估这些变化。我们发现，在可以根据现有证据以合理的置信度评估取消出版前同行评审的影响的情况下，它们要么是积极的，要么是中性的。我们得出的结论是，就目前的证据而言，废除同行评审对现状的主导作用微弱。