This looks like a good opportunity to ask a question I've had for a long time. In what field(s) of research is it respectable to ask, "Has this paper been peer reviewed?"<p>I've spent nearly four decades working mostly in academia with scientists, engineers, social scientists of various degrees of rigor, and even occasional humanities types. I don't think I have ever been in a group where someone did or would raise the issue of peer review when discussing the quality of a report.<p>In all groups I've associated with, you are expected to know enough about your field to be able to assess for yourself the quality of a paper as you read it. Relying on some anonymous reviewer's judgement to justify your acceptance of a report would cast serious doubt on your own judgement.<p>I've been trying to note just who raises this issue and they appear to be most often in life sciences/medicine. I've never worked in that general area, but my impression is that knowledge of statistics and methodology is rather weaker than in other scientific fields. My (perhaps uncharitable) theory is that peer review has become a gateway for automatic acceptance because the average technical expertise of readers is so low that they cannot evaluate for themselves.