PRINCETON (RPT) - The already fragile peer review system is showing signs of collapse this week as professors have more important things to do than review mediocre papers that are only tangentially related to their research areas. “Usually I’m excited to have the chance to review papers from my colleagues so I can place unreasonable requests on them and watch them squirm as they try to go through the revision process,” one professor told RPT, “but now I’m so busy fending off demons and preparing for the final destruction of the world, that I just don’t have time for reviewing papers anymore.”
According to an unreliable and biased source, Associate Editors at journals across the sciences have been struggling to get anybody to agree to review papers since the Apocalypse began on Wednesday. “It’s impossible to get anybody to agree to review anymore” one editor told RPT, “Everybody I ask just tells me to fuck off. They have every excuse you can imagine, and this whole Apocalypse thing is just adding fuel to their raging fire of ridiculous reasons why they can’t review.”
This comes after a series of recent blows to the viability of the peer review system, beginning when Florida Man was identified as Reviewer 3 and continuing with the recent finding that peer review does not pass peer review, which lead to a rift in the fabric of spacetime. Challenges to the fabric of the universe continued last week when it was discovered that an online submission portal at a top journal was actually a portal to hell.
The beginning of the Apocalypse on Wednesday appears to have dealt a final blow to the peer review system. “I’m too busy stocking my larder and watching Doomsday Preppers that I simply don’t have time left for this bullshit,” one professor told RPT while adjusting the tubes on his backyard hydroponic system, “I have more important things to do now, like figuring out how to use this fucking multitool.”
