Andrew Beckwith
Andrew Beckwith Its painful, but even in its present iteration, I understand the system.
I would have nothing to say if we were talking about business and predominant positions here. But we are talking about science here, and the subject is very different. In science "the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual [Galileo 1610]".
It is clear that the most influential universities are those that contribute most to the scientific debate but these universities rarely deal with controversial ideas or ideas that are not in line with the mainstream ideas that they themselves have defined. On the contrary, IMHO, important breakthroughs in science could come from marginal universities, in a totally unexpected way and also in contrast with the interests of large institutions.
At the bottom, there is the very important problem, which emerged on many occasions in this forum, that arXiv reclassifies peer-reviewed articles. How dare they question months of peer-review with a superficial moderation system of a few days? The most puzzling thing is that arXiv NEVER gives reasons. The ""The arXiv moderation process is not a peer-review process. arXiv staff and moderators do not evaluate the validity of the scientific process and cannot give feedback on the submission. " [arXiv blog].
"arXiv moderation actually resembles an inquisition process where authors do not know what they are accused
of, some selected authors are allegedly blacklisted, authors cannot defend themselves at any stage, much less on objective grounds and on the merit of scientific facts, authors do not know what criteria are adopted, the stated policies are unabashedly obscure, it is not known who judges authors or if there are “hidden” members in the management, they do not seem to recognize the authority of any other scientific institution and are not judged by anyone. Furthermore, for “selected” cases, i.e. for those controversial preprints that should be evaluated with the most scientific rigor, the final decision seems to be taken by authority from the "the founder and some leaders" even in opposition to the opinion expressed by the moderators themselves, as was confidentially reported to me by an insider whose identity I cannot disclose. “Sometimes” the verdict seems to be already written before the process
starts. One wonders how all this could have happened. Who gave such a monopoly of scientific information and the consequent power to condition science into the hands of a single institution with such unscientific policies?"
So to speak, ArXiv instills in the author's head the doubt that his results, certified by reviewers and editors, are wrong without saying how and why? The author of an article published in a journal has the right to know if his article is correct or not, at least to withdraw or correct it, and to prevent others from producing wrong publications on it. Doesn't the question seem paradoxical to you?
If you want to keep an idea secret, post it on physics:gen-ph. You will be sure that no one will ever take it seriously.
This evidently violates the very essence of the scientific method, is unacceptable and is blocking the free flow of ideas in science. Ideas that may turn out to be wrong but surely can be inspiring for someone if they have passed peer-review. Science is also made up of (apparently or truly) wrong ideas, it wouldn't be a shame if one of these ideas should unfortunately pass through arXiv. I attribute a large part of the crisis of theoretical physics, foundations of quantum mechanics, partly also in cosmology and other disciplines not closely linked to experimental results, to the policies of arXiv. As far as I can see, arXiv bears great responsibility for the sterility of the current scientific debate.
"“It is just an ordinary day at the headquarters of the physics preprint archive. The operators
are going through their daily routine and are discussing what to do about recent emails:
arXiv moderator: Some 'reader complaints' have come in regarding preprints posted to the
archive by Drs. Einstein and Yang. Dr. Einstein, who is not even an academic, claims to have
shown in his preprint that mass and energy are equivalent, while Professor Yang is
suggesting, on the basis of an argument I find completely unconvincing, that parity is not
conserved in weak interactions. What action shall I take?
arXiv advisory board: Abject nonsense! Just call up their records and set their 'barred'
flags to TRUE.
arXiv moderator: And here's a letter from one 'Hans Bethe' supporting an author whose
paper we deleted from the archive as being 'inappropriate'.
arXiv advisory board: Please don't bother me with all these day to day matters! Prof. Bethe
is not in the relevant 'field of expertise', so by rule 23(ii) we simply ignore anything he says.
Just delete his email and send him rejection letter #5.
The first portion of the above exchange is fictional of course, but might well have happened
had Einstein and Yang had dealings with the physics preprint archive arXiv.org, administered
by Cornell University, today. The second part is not fictional.”" [Nobel Laureate Brian Josephson]
