> I feel like saying papers pre peer review should be taken with a grain of salt should be stopped.

Absolutely not. I am an advocate for peer review, warts and all, and find that it has significant value. From a personal perspective, peer review has improved or shot down 100% of the papers that I have worked on -- which to me indicates its value to ensure good ideas with merit make it through. Papers I've reviewed are similarly improved -- no one knows everything and its helpful to have others with knowledge add their voice, even when the reviewers also add cranky items.[0] I would grant that it isn't a perfect process (some reviewers, editors are bad, some steal ideas) -- but that is why the marketplace of ideas exists across journals.

> Science should become a marketplace of ideas.

This already happens. The scholarly sphere is the savanna when it comes to resources -- it looks verdant and green but it is highly resource constrained. A shitty idea will get ripped apart unless it comes from an elephant -- and even then it can be torn to shreds.

That it happens behind paywalls is a huge problem, and the incentive structures need to be changed for that. But unless we want blatant charlatanism running rampant, you want quality checks.

[0] https://x.com/JustinWolfers/status/591280547898462209?lang=e... if a car were a manuscript

What happens if (a) the scholarly sphere is continually expanding and (b) no researcher has time to be ripping apart anything? That also suggests (c) Researchers delegate reviewing duties to LLMs.