I agree with David.
Incidentally, by editorial accident one of my own papers came to me to
review a few months ago. I declined on the grounds that I had a vested
interest in the matter!
Don
David Campbell wrote:
> All subjects, from architecture to physics, from literary
> criticism to economics, develop what Thomas Kuhn called paradigms
> – assumptions common to all practitioners and assumed to represent
> universal truth until a new paradigm displaces the old.
>
> However, in science there is also the test of reasonable conformity to
> observations. The problem lies in the paradigm-influenced decision as
> to what are significant observations and what is noise, but many
> claims are sufficiently discordant with observation to be eliminated.
>
> >Big advances come through the paradigm shifts<
>
> Based on Kuhn's circular definition. In reality, they can also come
> through technological advances and through novel discoveries within a
> paradigm.
>
> >The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, an elegant suspension bridge in Washington
> State, carried traffic for four months in 1940. In a high wind, the
> flat deck acquired a beautiful wave pattern. The oscillations grew
> larger and larger until the roadway finally disintegrated into Puget
> Sound.<
>
> The wind wasn't all that high; it just hit the right frequency.
>
> Every crank idea claims to be introducing a novel paradigm, unfairly
> repressed by the hidebound establishment. Legitimate ideas can suffer
> the same fate, but it's important to recognize that greater
> opportunity for acceptance of outside ideas carries costs as well as
> benefits.
>
> When I was a graduate student, my advisor had a grant application
> rejected. One review claimed that, for particular fossils mentioned,
> it was a) impossible to obtain them and b) would not have preserved
> what we wanted to look at anyway. At the time this review was
> returned, he was observing the structures of interest in some of those
> specimens. Certainly peer review can fail. On the other hand,
> Emiliani's proposal for absolute peer review shows the problems of
> freely allowing advocates of new ideas to be their own judges. He
> received his own grant application to review through some clerical
> error. He wrote a brief reply saying it was the best proposal he had
> ever seen, that it deserved to be funded at twice the requested level,
> and that he would be glad to review more of Emiliani's proposals as
> needed.
>
> Most peer review allows you to mention if there is anyone who probably
> should not be a reviewer as well as those who you think would be good
> reviewers.
>
> --
> Dr. David Campbell
> 425 Scientific Collections
> University of Alabama
> "I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
>
-- Donald A. Nield Associate Professor, Department of Engineering Science University of Auckland Private Bag 92019 Auckland, NEW ZEALAND ph +64 9 3737599 x87908 fax +64 9 3737468 Courier address: 70 Symonds Street, Room 235 or 305 d.nield@auckland.ac.nz http://www.esc.auckland.ac.nz/People/Staff/dnie003/Received on Fri May 26 18:23:14 2006
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