In 1936 refereeing was not a universal practice at the world’s top scientific journals. It was not even a universal practice at Physical Review. Einstein’s previous submission to that journal, the famous 1936 Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paper, was not sent out for referee reports despite its provocative antiquantum conclusions.
So Einstein’s bafflement at receiving an anonymous report criticizing his paper was hardly inexplicable. But 80 years later, peer review is an expected and established part of publishing for scientists and scholars in almost every academic discipline. How did this process become so ingrained in scientific life?
