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Re: [ccp4bb]: re: Problems with PDB entry 1muo; flame war II
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Hi Leif,
You point to another problem. I'm less aware of it I presume because it
has never happened to me or to someone close to me. But I've heard about
enough times to believe that it can be a serious issue.
Whereas there are some possible psychological reasons for this
(apparently there's indeed quite a few people seeking fame, Nobel prize
or whatever) I think that the principal reason must be more mundane:
competition. We are competing for fundings, and fundings are more and
more given based on industrial standards of "productivity" (read papers)
Who could now (in the "Academy") spend five years without publishing,
while doing valuable work, simply not ready to be published?
I do think that referees/reviewers should be public. I think this
happens in other fields. The discussion and the literature would benefit
of the public exchange of ideas. The discussion itself would be maybe as
interesting as the paper in question... But I guess this is very
difficult as long as this anti-scientific competition makes many people
think that "the hell is the others", as Sartre said.
I agree with you: I wouldn't send my data only to anonymous
referees. But I could make it public from the beginning: this would make
clear who got the results first. Because, apparently, this matters more
than the mere results.
Cheers,
Miguel
blm <blm@ornl.gov>, 25/04/2003:
> Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 11:18:08 -0400
> From: blm <blm@ornl.gov>
> Subject: [ccp4bb]: re: Problems with PDB entry 1muo; flame war II
> To: ccp4 <ccp4bb@dl.ac.uk>
>
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> *** CCP4 home page http://www.ccp4.ac.uk ***
>
> Folks,
> There is way too much Blanche DuBois syndrome with this topic - too much
> reliance on the kindness of strangers. Theft is rarely punished in this field,
> Nobel prizes seem more likely. Editors, especially those with "stainless"
> reputations, can send sensitive papers to competitors (after all, they know
> the most about the topic). Editorial discretion can result in the original
> authors wading through interminable and changing reviews, while the first
> submission is mined for useful information and the result sent to a friendly
> journal. Priority is then established by the thieves and there aren't many
> venues that allow you to say we wuz robbed. Sending coordinates to reviewer is
> too tempting, especially for the ambitious and driven. The only way a reviewer
> should view coordinates is if they first identify themselves.
> Leif Hanson
>
> "He took a duck in the face at 250 knots" - William Gibson
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> B. Leif Hanson
> UT/ORNL Genome Science and Technology
> P.O. Box 2009, MS 8080
> Oak Ridge, TN 37831-8080
> Phone: 865-574-1210
>
>
~~~~~~~~~
--
Miguel Ortiz Lombardía
email: mol@ysbl.york.ac.uk
http://www.ysbl.york.ac.uk/~mol
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all
progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw