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mk  ·  4456 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: CERN’s Higgs boson discovery passes peer review, becomes actual science.

I agree. I think peer review indicates another level of certitude, but the value of peer review depends on the quality of the journal (the editors and peers selected), the culture of the discipline, and the current prevailing scientific consensus. Peer review is a variable entity.

That said, Phys Rev B is a solid journal, and physicists are typically sticklers. The way I see it, theory predicted a Higgs, this particle fits the description, so for all intensive purposes, it is the Higgs we were looking for. Of course, now people will try to take that apart, or expand upon it.

To me, this article suggests that their ducks were in a row, and there weren't any big gaps in the analysis.