Mike, I understand. The main point I was trying to make is that if and when we want or need a system of pre-publication peer review, we should be aware of the cost per article that that system entails. I compared a system built on pre-publication peer review (upwards of $2000 per article) with one based on peer endorsement (less than $10 per article). Whether or not that difference justifies a rethink of the traditional scientific publishing system is up to the scientific community.
Jan On 13 Jan 2012, at 14:53, Michael Smith wrote: > Jan- > > I just don't think the ArXiv model would work for archaeology. Part of > the reason may be the heterogeneous nature of the field, which runs from > hard science to interpretive humanities, and part may be the overall > lower level of agreed-upon disciplinary standards (related to, but not > isomorphic with, the first point). If archaeology were to jettison peer > review, I would stop publishing in those journals and declare myself a > historian or a sociologist. > > Mike > > Michael E. Smith, Professor > School of Human Evolution & Social Change > Arizona State University > www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9 > -----Original Message----- > From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On > Behalf Of Jan Velterop > Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2012 10:32 AM > To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) > Subject: [GOAL] Re: Peer review, OA, etc. > > Mike, > > I totally accept that your discipline suffers from practitioners of > "psychoceramics", a field of study involving "cracked pots" > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_S._Carberry - tomorrow, as every > Friday the 13th, it's "Josiah Stinkney Carberry day"). It's probably > true of many disciplines, and it's certainly a well-known phenomenon in > physics, where highly fantastic theories about the universe and > everything abound. Yet ArXiv seems to be able to keep those crackpots > out with a fairly simple - and cheap - endorsement system: > http://arxiv.org/help/endorsement. Would this really be impossible in > archaeology? It may well not be completely fail-safe, but then, what in > life is? To all intents and purposes, we know that ArXiv works. > > Jan Velterop > > On 12 Jan 2012, at 16:46, Michael Smith wrote: > >> I would not presume to talk about the value of peer review for all of > science, but for some fields it is absolutely essential. I am a > archaeologist, and we desperately need peer review to weed out papers by > two groups of authors (many of whom can write scholarly-sounding and > scholarly-looking papers). First we lunatics who would like to think > they are part of the scholarly discipline. They are into Maya prophesies > for 2012, boatloads of Egyptians who (supposedly) showed the Incas how > to mummify the dead, phony pyramids in the Balkans, and the like. Some > of these people write books and articles that appear to be scholarly, > but are not. The second group is more insidious. These are scholars with > valid degrees who have a very non-scientific epistemology, producing > stories of the past with little plausibility. Taking a more > humanities-oriented approach, they are willing to propose > interpretations that the more scientifically-minded of us consider > baseless speculation. >> >> High-energy physics presumably has fewer lunatics and hangers-on than > archaeology, and they are probably easier to spot. We desperately need > peer review to keep some sort of sanity in our field. >> >> Mike >> >> Michael E. Smith, Professor >> School of Human Evolution & Social Change >> Arizona State University >> www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9 >> _______________________________________________ >> GOAL mailing list >> GOAL at eprints.org >> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal > > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > GOAL at eprints.org > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > GOAL at eprints.org > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
