“[A] pertinent consideration [in determining whether a theory or technique is scientific knowledge that will assist the trier of fact] is whether the theory or technique has been subjected to peer review and publication.”
—Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1993)
The phrase “peer review” connotes the evaluation (“review”) of scientific or other scholarly work by others presumed to have expertise in the relevant field (“peers”). Specifically, and most to the present purpose, it refers to the evaluation of submitted manuscripts to determine what work is published in professional journals and what books are published by academic presses (in which context it is also called “refereeing,” “editorial peer review,” or “pre-publication peer review”). Occasionally, however, the phrase is used in a much broader sense, to cover the whole longrun history of the scrutiny of a scientist’s work within the scientific community, and of others’ efforts to build on it, a long-run process of which peer review in the narrower sense is only a small part.