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Let’s be real for a moment. The publishers may be driven by money, but scientific careerism isn’t – it’s about ideology, stability, influence and ultimately status. The currency is the publication, or citation, which is scaled in value (why journals advertise exposure ratings) and bartered and traded (through unearned multiple authorships).
The formal mechanism by which this currency is controlled is the peer review process, which is less about quality and intellectual honesty than about controlling the current value of types of currency (maintaining current orthodoxy).
There have been some histories of fraud in science over the years (all that fudging and cheating through undergrad and the learned prostitution to a committee through grad school – did you think that somehow stopped once the research positions were awarded?). I believe a review would reveal that in those rare cases when incompetence or counterfeiting is exposed, it’s not generally to the credit of the peer review process, but in spite of it.
But perhaps I’m unfair.
