"Heed My Opinion!" vs. "Look At What I Found!"

Reader comment on: Crovitz on Anonymity

Submitted by bobby b (United States), Nov 30, 2009 15:41

When a promising newer scientist attempts to publish a paper that disputes entrenched powers-that-be in the pertinent scientist community, but one such entrenched power-that-is quashes the paper as being "obviously stoopid and unsupported", and signs the rejection slip "anonski", we are all damaged, because we let ourselves be deprived of these new thoughts only because we have an expectation that the rejection process certainly was supported by valid gatekeeping functions, when instead the gatekeeping was done for personal profit.

In that situation, the identity of "anonski" must be known, so that we all may judge the honesty and believability of the rejection. If "anonski" had a huge vested interest in maintaining the status quo, we'd probably discount the rejection slip and find the paper anyway.

But when some guy "finds" a bunch of papers that were written by "anonski" (under his real name) that recount for his friends how he quashed that stoopid schmuck's paper that might have led to his losing his chairmanship of the World Deciders Committee, and that guy then sends those letters around the world without signing his name on the cover letter, I don't care too much who he is, as long as the provenence of those papers is established.

Big difference, in my mind.

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