As many of you are aware, I have been attempting to publish "Why
Occams Razor" for about 18 months now. In September, it will have been
two years since I wrote the paper. I first tried Phys Rev - which
rejected it on editorial policy grounds ("no fundamentals of QM
please") then Annals of Physics (who published Tegmark's
paper). Annals of Physics found one referee, who completely failed to
understand the main point of the paper, and was not prepared to
discuss it. The ended up rejecting the paper because they couldn't
find any other referees to handle it. In February of this year, I have
submitted it to Journal of Theoretics, for two reasons:
i) It is an Internet Journal, with open access to its
archives. Philosophically, I am in favour of free open access to
journals since
a) scientists do not charge to write articles,
b) scientists do not charge to referee articles,
c) scientific editors often do not charge to edit journals, or the
editors are subsidised by a society or institution
d) the Internet reduces distributions charges to practically zero.
I have been a long supporter of the journal Complexity International
for these reasons, although its subject matter is not so relevant for
this group. It perhaps does not have the cachet of other journals, but
I believe so strongly in this principle, I would like to raise its
quality by contributing good articles.
ii) J. Theoretics editorial policy is summed up by:
"Unlike most journals were the theory has to be validated or
invalidated by the article, the Journal of Theoretics must use a
different process due to the nature of the subject matter. Because a
theory by definition is a hypothesis not yet proven, we must show that
the premises, logic, or use of language of the article submitted
contains a significant error in order for a rejection to occur."
ie something obviously wrong gets rejected, but otherwise ideas of
merit get to see the light of day.
However, it seems that Internet journals do not have a speedier
refereeing process. It galls me a bit, since I've always turned around
papers I've refereed within a couple of weeks, that other referees may
not be taking the refereeing process seriously.
I have a question in light of this for the group. Come September (2nd
anniversary of Why Occams Razor), if I've had no joy with
J. Theoretics, I would like to try another journal. All I ask is that
my paper be properly peer reveiwed. Does anyone have any suggestions?
What about Teorie e Modelli?
Cheers
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Dr. Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile)
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 (")
Australia R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Room 2075, Red Centre
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
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Received on Wed Jul 04 2001 - 17:49:29 PDT