X-Message-Number: 23474 Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 06:59:13 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: re: David Stodolsky's comment re mine A short reply to Dr. David Stodolsky: Refereeing in any form did not exist at the time of Newton, nor at the later time of Gauss. Science does not require refereeing in the form in which its currently done. As I understand it, a small minority of journals do not require ANONYMOUS refereeing: if you referee a paper you're also required to let the author(s) of the paper know who you are, and if necessary answer any complaints about your refereeing made by those author(s). My own feelings about refereeing would be that it would be quite sufficient for the referees to be known to the refereed, and responsible for answering any complaints the refereed may have about their opinion of a paper. The only practical way this can be done, given human conduct, is that the referees be named when the paper is published. It's ANONYMOUS refereeing which allows referees to do such things as fail to read a paper and write an opinion of it after a superficial glance. I do not know what the Net will do to current scientific practice. It does make it easier for almost anyone to publish, and for the opinions of those concerned by what he's published to become widespread more easily --- perhaps a little like the early days of science, when everyone knew everyone else. Is this what will happen? I don't know. However current scientific practice has its faults. In fact, in some ways the situation remains just as it did in the 19th and 20th centuries: an insightful idea may well eventually triumph just because it's insightful. But it can easily do so after the death of the person who originally proposed it, and even because someone else came along and rediscovered it and then LATER we all found out that X the obscure had said the very same thing 50 years before. Best wishes and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23474