Recently, Steinn brought our attention to some of the difficulties involved in getting a scientific journal to publish a “Comment” on an article. He drew on a document (PDF) by Prof. Rick Trebino of the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Physics detailing (in 123 numbered steps) his own difficulties in advancing what is supposed to be an ongoing conversation between practicing scientists in the peer reviewed scientific literature. Indeed, I think this chronology of exasperation raises some questions about just what interests journal editors are actually working towards, and about how as a result journals may be failing to play the role that the scientific community has expected them to play.
If the journals aren’t playing this role, the scientific community may well need to find another way to get the job done.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, let’s look at some key stretches of Trebino’s timeline:
1. Read a paper in the most prestigious journal in your field that “proves” that your entire life’s work is wrong.
2. Realize that the paper is completely wrong, its conclusions based entirely on several misconceptions. It also claims that an approach you showed to be fundamentally impossible is preferable to one that you pioneered in its place and that actually works. And among other errors, it also includes a serious miscalculation–a number wrong by a factor of about 1000–a fact that’s obvious from a glance at the paper’s main figure.
3. Decide to write a Comment to correct these mistakes–the option conveniently provided by scientific journals precisely for such situations.