The Structural Failure of Self-Correction in Academic Peer Review: Asymmetric Costs, Missing Accountability, and a Path Forward

Peer review is widely regarded as the cornerstone of scientific quality control. However, a structural analysis reveals fundamental defects that prevent self-correction within the system. This paper identifies three critical failures: (1) asymmetric cost distribution, where researchers bear all costs of rejection while editors and reviewers bear none; (2) absence of accountability, where erroneous rejections carry no consequences for decision-makers; and (3) missing feedback loops, where the system cannot learn from its mistakes. Historical cases—Boltzmann, Wegener, Semmelweis, and others—demonstrate that these structural failures have repeatedly delayed scientific progress, sometimes by decades. The paper proposes concrete reforms: mandatory definition of evaluation criteria, public archiving of rejection rationales, retrospective auditing of editorial decisions, and distributed cost mechanisms. Without structural intervention, peer review will continue to function as an unaccountable gatekeeping system rather than a self-correcting quality assurance mechanism.