Peer Review and Certification

[Peter Rauch]

On Thu, 19 Feb 1998, Les Watling wrote:
[was] Subject: Re: $pecies names
> ... We have seen lately, however, papers getting rejected because
> of sloppy statistics.

Peer review at work? Or, certification?

>  Parenthetically, one might observe that ecological
> papers rarely get rejected because of sloppy taxonomy (does anyone ever
> check the identifications in published ecological papers?).

No peers for this aspect of the reviews? Or, certification failing?

> So, how to enforce the certification business.  Well, one way would be to
> get the systematic societies who sponsor journals to refuse to accept papers
> unless one of the authors was certified.  This idea would spread because of
> the perception of quality work that would be attached to such papers.  In
> other words, peer review isn't enough.

Why isn't peer review enough? What are its specific failings (with
respect to systematics/taxonomic pubs)? How would certification prevent
those failings?
Peter