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Peter Roopnarine wrote:
>A comment on Stefan Bengston's comments on Internet posting of manuscripts.
>I do believe that Richard stated that the manuscript should be cited (if at
>all) as "personal communication". Obviously the intent is not to circumvent
>the "normal" peer review process, but rather to make manuscripts available
>to interested colleagues sooner than 2-3 years after preparation. Of course
>peer review has to continue, for purposes of noise reduction in the
>published literature. But this format is not published literature; it is a
>new twist on personal communication. Given the ability to reach many
>interested persons almost instantly via the Internet, I see no reason why it
>should not be used in this manner. And paleontology will not be the first
>discipline to do this; it is already commonplace in many physics disciplines
>and molecular biology. I have failed to perceive any recent breakdowns in
>quality control in those fields.
>Peter Roopnarine
No, Richard did not try to circumvent any review process, and I tried to
avoid giving that impression in my posting. But look further: what is
publishing, and why do we publish? The purpose of publishing is not to
delay the spreading of results by some "2-3 years" or even 2-3 months, but
to make results generally available. Richard has already made his results
generally available, and this is publishing. Why would any publisher bother
with going through a lot of expense to put the same thing on record at some
later stage, where few people will ever bother to look at it (even less pay
for it)?
It would be wonderful if you're right, Peter, that there will be no
breakdown in quality control if we all spread our manuscripts through the
internet as soon as they are finished. We could communicate our results
instantly, and there would be no need for the cumbersome
review+editing+publishing process. I could go back to doing full-time
science again rather than trying to organize other people's publishing (I'd
miss some of the fun, though). Publishers would become as redundant as
editors and reviewers, and we would no longer have the cost of having to
buy literature and to keep the libraries running (except for the older,
not-yet digitalized literature). Everything would be easier. I'm not
ironic, I really think it would.
But I fear you're wrong: unbridled personal publishing put in practice will
lead to the quick disappearance of peer-reviewed publishing, and that will
have repercussions. We have not kept editing and peer-reviewing of
scientific contributions for centuries just out of conservatism - they
really serve(d) a purpose.
Maybe we can't stop the tide - it's just too cheap and easy to put things
on the net. If so, peer review will probably take on a different role -
some kind of post-facto reviewing, maybe resulting in constant updating of
published manuscripts. We may be able to live with it, perhaps even profit
from it - it does sound kind of lively and dynamic. But one thing seems
likely: the noise level will increase considerably. We can only hope it
won't be to unbearable levels.
Stefan Bengtson _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/
Department of Palaeozoology _/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/_/
Swedish Museum of Natural History _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
Box 50007 _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/
S-104 05 Stockholm _/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/
Sweden _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
tel. +46-8 666 42 20
+46-18 54 99 06 (home)
fax +46-8 666 41 84
e-mail Stefan.Bengtson@nrm.se
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