Re: A whiff of reality...

[Doug Donalson]

----- Original Message -----
From: Benedikt Stefansson <address@hidden>
To: <address@hidden>
Sent: Monday, May 01, 2000 5:52 PM
Subject: Re: A whiff of reality...


> Doug Donalson wrote:
>
> > Steve, at least from looking at the quote, you got an idiot, don't take
it
> > for any more than that.  (After saying that, I hope its not someone I
> > know...)
>
> Hmmm....Emprical observation would suggest that all reviewers who reject
papers
> are total idiots, while those who accept them are without fail brilliant
> scientists.

Not at all.  The question is not whether the paper is rejected but the
critera behind the rejection.  If I reject a paper because the model is
incorrect, for instance, the units do not match between two added terms,
that is a valid criticism.  If I reject with no scientific basis, that makes
me an idiot (or at least a very bad reviewer.)


> > The opinion quoted is just personal predjuce, not science.
>
> I hate to say this, but from reading the comment I got the impression that
the
> reviewer did not understand the difference between an open-source API and
an
> off-the-shelf software package. Although I'm not familiar with the
> state-of-the-art in ecology, his comments make more sense if this
> misunderstanding was the case. Was the difference explained and discussed
in
> the paper?

First of all, if this was true then they shouldn't have been a reviewer.
And, as both Marcus and I pointed out, the arguments the reviewer made can
be applied at every level of modeling, right down to the chip design.
(Remember the PII(?) math error that Intel tried to ignore?)  Science could
not advance if everyone had to start from scratch.  We just have to be
careful to make sure we use the correct tool for the correct job.

There are people out there that live by the "not invented here" philosophy.
The best you can do is (if you know who they are) is request that future
papers not be reviewed by them.

> This said, I think that the rejection is absurd on the face of it. By
giving
> this vitriolic statement the reviewer in fact validates that these
> methodological issues are important and need to be discussed.
>
> Benedikt
>
> --
> Benedikt Stefansson      | address@hidden
> CASA, Inc.               | Ph : (505) 988-8807 x101
> Santa Fe, NM 87501       | Fax: (505) 988-3440
>
>
>
>
>
>                   ==================================
>    Swarm-Modelling is for discussion of Simulation and Modelling
techniques
>    esp. using Swarm.  For list administration needs (esp.
[un]subscribing),
>    please send a message to <address@hidden> with "help" in the
>    body of the message.
>                   ==================================
>



                  ==================================
   Swarm-Modelling is for discussion of Simulation and Modelling techniques
   esp. using Swarm.  For list administration needs (esp. [un]subscribing),
   please send a message to <address@hidden> with "help" in the
   body of the message.
                  ==================================