Wow, Anthony! Your thoughts are very clearly and vividly expressed.
I think it would be especially useful if we could have more discussion
on your point about the role of journal editors, since they are the gate
keepers. Most of us believe we can come to sound judgments about articles
in our field, but we only see the articles that editors let by.
Additionally, editors usually decide what articles even get sent out for
peer review and they pick the reviewers.
I know we need gatekeepers; otherwise we'd be flooded with junk, but
have we found the most efficient way to find the nuggets of value that are
occasionally mixed in with the junk but are disguised in some way (i.e.,
aren't what we are used to looking for).
2009/7/11 Anthony Waldron <[email protected]>
> I've found myself thinking about this a lot recently. This has not been a
> noble metaphysical endeavour on my part, don't nobody get me wrong. I
> started from a forum question I was going to post myself: Should journal
> editors be tasked to distinguish between referees who simply don't agree
> with an idea (and so reject a paper), and genuine refereeing that recognizes
> that data and methods are sound, but will always be open to differences in
> interpretation?
> Currently, I don't think there is any such hard and fast distinction.
> We would like to think that today, Galileo would be published in Science,
> because we are so raised in nobility that we will immediately recognize and
> promote new ideas.
> I think not. Old hands in this field are constantly commenting on those of
> their colleagues who are also Lords of Science, but who have developed such
> a strong world view that everything is read through the lens of their
> opinion.
> Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. There is in Literature
> circles something called "reader theory", asserting that human being are
> incapable of reading something without interpreting it according to their
> own beliefs and prejudices. The idea of our being raised above our
> predecessors in intellectual nobility, essentially asserts that scientists
> are immune from reader theory. If so, then why is the idea of a "paradigm",
> that highest exemplar of the lens of belief and prejudice, an invention that
> took place in my own lifetime? I could even play Devil's Advocate here, and
> suggest that Kuhn and Capra made such a meal out of the idea of paradigms,
> because of their enormous prevalence in the time that we are living.
> Galileo wouldn't be tortured today (no Bush jokes please). But he would be
> serving blended coffee drinks to harried businessmen, having failed to
> achieve even pre-tenure status on a blank publication record.
> I'm not enough of a historian to assert whether we are getting better. But
> I can say that, from my contemporary experience, personal viewpoints are
> held religiously by scientists as strongly as by non-scientists. We live in
> a belief-driven society, not one in which everyone goes around weighing the
> truth of each opinion with careful objectivity. Belief is faster
> operationally, an evolutionary efficiency that allows us to make snap
> decisions in a dangerous world. The faster and more complex the world, the
> more belief's Gut will take over from objective consideration. It would
> certainly seem that our world is the fastest and most complex that the human
> brain has had to deal with yet.
> Anthony Waldron
>
> > Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:44:35 -0700
> > From: [email protected]
> > Subject: [ECOLOG-L] SCIENCE as intellectual discipline An open
> discussion Authority Is it compatible with science?
> > To: [email protected]
> >
> > Honorable Forum:
> >
> > At the suggestion of one subscriber, I am taking the initiative in
> posting
> > this on Ecolog initially to get the Open Discussion (OD) started. When it
> > appears to fizzle, those interested can continue off-list if they wish,
> by
> > emailing Meiss or myself.
> >
> > Martin Meiss' most fundamental (no pun intended) point seemed to be:
> >
> > ". . . we should be looking for something better than "Does this have the
> > stamp of approval of people who think like I do?" We should be looking
> for
> > something that is not just an encodement of "Does this violate the
> doctrine
> > of my faith?" --Martin M. Meiss, Ecolog post, 7-9-2009
> >
> > While Meiss was referring to publishing, his comment is fundamental; it
> > harkens to principle, a crucial divide that cleaves through human
> > consciousness and behavior from the beginnings of culture to the present.
> > And how we interpret this dichotomy may well be pivotal for our future
> and
> > that of much of life on earth. But it is as fully understandable as it is
> > tragic. Even our courts (or more accurately, especially our courts) court
> > and countenance countless miscarriages of justice, not to mention every
> > shred of human affairs and the systems they affect and effect.
> > Authoritarianism is recognizable as the ultimate evil in fascism and
> Nazism,
> > but embraced as the Holy Grail when sanctified by authority in the name
> of
> > science.
> >
> > There is some ratio of high-level fakery to honest intellectual enquiry
> > today as in, say, the time of Copernicus, but we don't know just what it
> is
> > or was or whether it was greater then than now. Of course, wanting to
> save
> > face for ourselves and ridicule the dead (save our heroes), we presume
> that
> > we are more advanced today. But I wonder how the trajectory of integrity
> > throughout history might be graphed? Is it a straight-line function of
> > continuous betterment through time, or has it had its ups and downs? Have
> > disciplines become more or less disciplined, more or less honest? What is
> > the credibility quotient of science? Of the discipline of ecology?
> >
> > At one time, I suspect that ecologists were more monk-like, eschewing the
> > grand life for the simple life, dedicated to the pursuit of understanding
> > what the hell is actually going on out there. Maybe it was in Clements'
> > time, for better or for worse, or maybe it is now, as ecologists struggle
> > mightily in cyberspace impoverished and unappreciated. Maybe they are
> still
> > monk-like. But maybe there are charlatans and knaves today as yesterday,
> > foisting off cyber-alchemy upon the kings in exchange for a larger and
> > larger largesse in the form of grants, secure in tenure, surrounded by
> > indentured and obedient students, struggling to breathe free. I am not
> > suggesting that all is going to hell in a handbasket, but I am suggesting
> > that there just may be more Emperors sans raiments that we might prefer
> to
> > imagine.
> >
> > I do not deign to revise Meiss' remarks, only to extend them--and to
> invite
> > others to offer up answers to Meiss' "something better" than the fraction
> of
> > science that remains or perhaps accelerates more deeply into the tyranny
> of
> > Authoritarian Hierarchy. To put it another way, is "a scientific
> certainty"
> > compatible with science as a feedback loop question? Is the sky falling
> or
> > is all well or where in-between do we fall or stand? Is much of science,
> > after all, yet another religion?
> >
> > WT
>
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