Peer review

should be a kind of quality assurance system for scholars. But it doesn't necessarily work that way:

Peer review: Life, death, and the British Medical Journal:

This controversy erupted over estimates of war deaths since World War 2 (1939-1945:)

Researchers from Canada, the UK and Sweden have slammed the influential British Medical Journal (BMJ) for publishing an error-filled study on global war deaths, refusing an equivalent rebuttal article and having a flawed peer-review process.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Post-Darwinist.)