1. "You might want to dig it out later, if 'current thinking' changes."
Yeah, maybe, but there is no guarantee that "current thinking" will change anytime soon. If you wait around for fashions to change, you may be dead before that happens. Extra-dimensional theories in physics were made popular by Kaluza and Klein back in the 1920's, then languished until to the 1970's, that's a long time to wait. Maybe you have an improvement on Ptolemy that uses elliptical orbits around the Earth rather than circular ones--well, good luck, I'm sure the Ptolemaic view of the universe will become popular again some day.
2. "I left it for a while, resubmitted the manuscripts without any changes whereupon they were accepted. Perhaps changes in current thinking contributed to this."
Perhaps. But it's more likely that it was just a different set of reviewers. By and large, having to review a paper ranks right up there with jury duty. If you write papers, it's an obligation to also review them. If you're conscientious, you read through every line, check every equation that you can, and ask to have everything explained that you don't understand. If you're not conscientious, you have a cursory glance through the paper and conclusions, make sure they're not claiming anything ridiculous, and recommend that the paper be accepted with the correction of a few typos that you're slave....er...graduate student found. So if all your reviewers happen to be too busy to really go through what you've said, you may get a free ride the second time.
I should say that both 1 and 2 are recommending delay. I am against that, science grows stale with time. It is best to write papers when the science is fresh in your thoughts, and if it's important then people should know about it sooner, rather than later.
3. "I am sure that a reputable scientific publcation would never reject a paper saying 'doesn't agree with current thinking'. At least not since Galileo's time."
This is a very idealistic and naive viewpoint. It may be superficially correct, in that most editors are politic enough not to phrase a rejection that way, but I'm certain that it happens, nonetheless. Try writing a paper, for example, that disagrees with one of the laws of thermodynamics--even in a regime where it has never been tested before--and see how easy it is to publish. Even if their reviewers accept the paper, most editors would be loath to publish such a paper knowingly--no one wants their journal to appear foolish when mistakes are made.
As a final note, I should mention that for some journals, the odds are your paper will be rejected--no matter what subject it is on. And by rejected I mean that it won't make through from submission to acceptance. The rejection rate for the journal Nature, for example, is 91%! That's about the highest of the bunch, 25-50% is a more typical rejection rate.
The best thing to do when submitting a paper is to set your ego aside and really try to understand and address any criticisms that the reviewers may have for you. If you can do that and revise your paper accordingly, you will probably get published, if not in the journal that was your first choice, then in another one. While there is certainly some prejudice and bias in the peer review process, sitting around and bemoaning the injustice of it is not productive.
Like any human-controlled endeavor, peer-review has its flaws. But citing one pathological example as a reason to throw out the whole system is like saying that nobody should drive cars because somebody once drove their Lincoln into a group of children and killed eight of them. (It is also a little troubling that we are not given the entire story for why the paper was rejected. My hunch is that there were probably additional reasons why the paper in question was rejected, and if we knew those the decision would seem less arbitrary.)
But, as an aside, the most egregious examples of failure of the peer-review system are provided by climate skeptics, where journals with skeptic-leaning editors (deFreitas, that guy at GRL who was a student of Pat Michaels and was responsible for Douglass et al. being accepted) push papers through the review process that are later shown to be seriously in error. So there is evidence that a corrupt editor can pervert the peer-review process. However, in nearly all cases, these editors are pushing an anti-science, climate skeptic or creationist agenda.
It would be interesting to know if any of the "regulars" here have ever acted as a peer-reviewer (or better yet as an editor) for a mainstream technical journal. I think it's hard to get an overall sense of the process if your sole experience is as an author.
Unless you are indeed Schroedinger reincarnated as a most sentient feline, there is no way to "agree" or "disagree" with the first two unverifiable anecdotal claims. The third claim is a matter of conjecture, not anecdote. Galileo was long longer ago than Schroedinger, so the "never" in that 3rd claim is extreme. But, I would agree with "hardly ever."
The very point of scientific publications is to introduce new ideas, it then up to other scientists to dispute them prove them or dis-prove them a point sadly denier just don't seem able to grasp.
A new idea certainly has to back it point with evidence and may be rejected at the initial level if it can't, that isn't rejecting the idea, it's say to the scientist, prove it!
Taking as a example Nature it has to reject many papers, simply because it receives far more than it can ever publish, scientific reviewers are chosen at random (and unknown to the authors) they check the paper for accuracy as reviewers are picked who work in the same field, the journal editor checks for the more mundane 'speling' and grammatical errors and the quality and presentation of the graphics, as they need to be readable by the large number of scientists who will read and follow the work, in the 25 years I've worked in science I've prepped many papers for publication but only 2 for Nature both where accepted.
As for the idea that a paper might be rejected because it disagrees with "current thinking" there are examples of many papers that challenged current thinking that where published, I think a more accurate description of the rejection would be "it's absurd and could not support the claims it made with any real data" a problem many denier theories face, which is why they only exist in blogs and deniers have to invent absurd conspiracies to try and explain that away.
That is of course if you think kanos paper ever actually existed, if you can get past the idea a retired U.K. fisherman who lived in Kuwait for many years and now has claimed to lived in the Philippines for many more years, even knows a scientist, who posted all this week while seeming to simple not notice his country was hit by a cat 4 Hurricane, While also claiming sea level is not rising because he has walked the same beach for 50 years, if you believe that back story then I have some nice swamp land to sell you, that particular denier has gone down the same road of fibs, that keep changing, as many before him jim, james, jello, randell and ritchie and a host of others
(how many actual people that is, is anyone's guess)
Gary F is generally regarded as one step above Dork on this site. He proves that he really doesn't understand how things work. I once knew a man who stated, "There isn't anything I don't know." Yes, in his own little world, I suppose that would seem true. However, in reality and outside his sphere of knowledge, he would be unaware of what he didn't know. Gary is a lot like that man.
Any person writing on this site knows the absurdity of many comments that fly around this site. However, in Kano's case, I can believe it. It would take more than suspicion for me to call a man a liar. However, the saviors of the earth on this site use that as their number one tool, to call someone a liar. I have caught several participants on this site lying and after proving that they were outright lying, they still denied lying. (In fact, I got a censor for calling Trevor a liar, even after proved that he was lying. There are a protected species on this site and Y!A has even stated so.)
Gary is implying that he has read every white paper since Galileo's time. That is an absurdity all in its own.
As to the TUs or TDs on this site, that you mention, I would put very little stock in those. For there are those on the greenie side who have sock puppets. They get an orgasm by putting a thumbs down, or several, on a true scientist. This is not conjecture, it is a proven fact. I hardly ever put a TD on a person who I don't agree with, since it might cause that person's answer to go into oblivion. That, in turn, would hide the person's unreasonableness, and I think it should be exposed.
So in direct response to your question: I'm with Kano on this.
"Something funny" =)
PS: I actually tried reading the original Kano YA question, from here:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...
I read his/her "question" over 3 times: I could not make sense of it. =)
@Koshka: Are you in love with Kano? =)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_lady_do...
Can not control, such as Chinese family car amazing amount of growth will affect the global climate.
Current thinking obviously depends on the peer who is editing it. One man's current is another man's past.
Antarcticice used to have his profile shown and he claimed that he was born in Antarctica and this is from someone that like to call others liars.
Returning the paper was total BS. It shows people don't have full information and no proof.
A question for global warming arises every year. We should do some practices to control over global warming.
Hi there!
Someone posted this question regarding rejection of science papers :
http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AvHAYO1h88rT42dapJFO4MMHOXRG;_ylv=3?qid=20130809032330AA8idzg
Here are some quotes from some answers:
" You might want to dig it out later, if "current thinking" changes. "
Note: This answer got 6 TU's, 6 users agreed with this.
" I left it for a while, resubmitted the manuscripts without any changes whereupon they were accepted. Perhaps changes in current thinking contributed to this."
" I am sure that a reputable scientific publcation would never reject a paper saying "doesn't agree with current thinking". At least not since Galileo's time. "
So, regulars, do you agree with these answers?
Either think before you type, I'm not feeling too benevolent at the moment, or make me laugh.
TY
