X-Message-Number: 23518
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:32:35 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Stodolsky's comments on refereeing

For David Stodolsky:

First of all, I said that SCIENCE could be conducted without the current
refereeing system. When you explain what happened in Newton's time, you
are either arguing that Newton wasn't doing science (!!!) or saying that
you agreed with me.

As for refereeing systems, you raise some interesting points (which are
not presently practiced). If refereeing is anonymous on BOTH sides, then
the problem of feelings which the refereed may feel toward the referee
don't arise, but it becomes very hard for the author of a paper to get
any credit or blame for it. If his/her name is published when the paper
is published, then we're back to where we were before. If both the 
author's name and the referees' names are published when the paper 
is published, you have almost the same situation as the one I was
suggesting in my first letter on this subject. For that matter, people
being people, nothing prevents the referee from disowning what he
did with the paper he refereed, saying that the refereed had various
faults in his thinking that he failed to catch.

I could hardly claim that my suggestion has no faults. However it
seems to me the simplest way to deal with these problems: the others
raise lots of trivial problems in implementation. Referees for a paper
must be so publicly.

                 Best wishes and long long life for all,

                     Thomas Donaldson

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23518