Ángel Raya Chamorro
ICREA Research Professor and Coordinator of the Regenerative Medicine Programme at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), member of CIBER-BBN, Director of the Clinical Translation Programme in Regenerative Medicine in Catalonia, and Professor of Physiology at the University of Barcelona.
I am not going to comment on findings that have not undergone peer review. Publishing in the press before publishing in scientific journals is marketing, not science.
My opinion does not focus on the scientific validity of the finding, but on the communication process, which I consider deeply problematic. This team has chosen to bypass the mechanism that the scientific community has relied on since the 17th century to validate knowledge: publication in specialist journals. And whilst peer review is certainly not perfect, it is currently the only system that has proven effective at filtering out errors, biases and exaggerations before a finding becomes news.
Publishing a 190-page document on their own website and inviting the press (including high-profile outlets such as The New York Times and CNN) before any independent expert has assessed the work is not transparency; it is a well-executed marketing strategy. The serious issue is that this dynamic normalises the practice of presenting scientific results directly to the public without any filter, as if they were tweets or press releases. It is worryingly similar to the alternative realities and fake news that Trumpism has helped to legitimise: the replacement of method with headlines, and of consensus with immediacy.
Science journalists should act as the filter that protects the public from this noise. But, as this case shows, many have prioritised clicks over context. News aggregators and various AIs are certainly not going to act as that filter, so it falls to us scientists and science communicators. That is why my sole view is this: without peer review, no scientific news is worth its salt. I sincerely believe that participating in the debate on the merits of SpudCell would, paradoxically, be to grant legitimacy to the very procedure used here to circumvent it.