On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 6:40 PM, Russell Standish <[email protected]>wrote:
> The policy I'm referring to (editorial rejection based on perceived > interest or status) seems likely to be a reaction to the very "junk > science" problem you mention. > I don't know what that means. > What I am saying is in this wired world, where journal space is not a > scarce resource, papers should only be rejected for obvious scientific > reasons In this wired world anything and anybody can get published, some online journals will publish anything if you pay them, or hell you could post it right here for free; but getting published is one thing getting read is something else. Space may not be a scarce resource but time certainly is, nobody can read everything so good scientist look to high ranked journals like Nature and Science to find the best stuff. It's true that you're relying on the judgement of the editors but history have proven their judgement is pretty damn good. And if you disagree with the editors decision just publish it someplace else, just don't expect Science or Nature to endorse it. > papers should only be rejected for obvious scientific I agree, I can think of only 2 reasons for rejecting a paper, it's not important or it's not true. > Other papers, where there are doubts or confusion, should be subject to > the author adequately addressing the referees' criticisms. > And that's how Nature dodged a bullet during the cold fusion fiasco. It's largely forgotten today but back in1989 soon after their notorious cold fusion press conference Pons and Fleischmann did submit a paper to Nature, and given that at the time Pons and Fleischmann were respected scientists and knowing the potential importance of it the editors put it on a fast track for publication; and In just a few days they received comments from the referees. They wanted more data confirming the cold fusion reaction, but even more important, they wanted clarification of the experimental setup. As described in the paper the experiment was so vague and nebulous it would be impossible for anyone to reproduce it. Pons and Fleischmann responded that they were busy and just did not have time to supply the requested data. They then withdrew the paper and got it published in a third rate journal few had heard of. The results were predictable, others tried to reproduce the experiment but got no interesting results, Pons and Fleischmann said oh we forgot to mention for it to work you must do this and that. And so others would try again with this new refinement and again they got nothing of interest and again Pons and Fleischmann said oh we forgot to mention for it to work you must also do that and this. After a few dozen iterations of this reputable scientists, mindful that they were mortal and only had a finite number of years to do science, grew tired of this silly game and moved on to other more productive things. And now Pons and Fleischmann are no longer respected scientists, but Nature is still a respected journal. > > Furthermore, with Google, or Google Scholar, and arXiv, you don't need > the status of Nature or Science to make your article visible or cited. If you're satisfied with arXiv and don't want a endorsement from Nature or Science then what are you complaining about? John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
