Re: A whiff of reality...

[Robert]

Doug Donalson wrote:

> 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.)

So every paper that had all their units match up should be accepted?  Reviewing
is subjective.  The way I read it, the paper was rejected on the grounds of the
reviewer believing it was not a contribution to the symposium...that is
different from being rejected with no scientific basis.  I think there is more
to understand here than just a paragraph from a reviewer's comments.

> First of all, if this was true then they shouldn't have been a reviewer.

I disagree.  Most of us are a heck of a lot more familiar with swarm and IBMs
(and Steve's work, for that matter) than the reviewer is.  But that, in
general, will be the rule, not the exception.  From the comments, I am guessing
this is not a modeling conference and is more geared towards management
tools...why would we expect the reviewer to have our background in modeling?
He/she may be a perfectly decent reviewer for this type of conference.

> 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.

Yes, but I really don't think that's what the reviewer meant.  With every new
level of abstraction, we take that leap of faith that the underlying complexity
was properly implemented.  Most people feel confident with their C compilers (I
do)....maybe even their RNGs (I trust Sven's  ;-)  but what about the way
someone scheduled swarm events?  If I was reviewing a model paper, I would not
be too concerned with the possible compiler bugs, but I sure as heck would want
to know every detail about the scheduling of events.  Now look at typical
modeling papers...can you reproduce what they did? Not usually...there's hardly
ever enough information. So there's lots of room for creative interpretations.
And the situation is far worse in areas where models are being used to make
management decisions.  In these cases, the model user sometimes only knows that
this model grows a tree...no idea how.  I believe the reviewer had this in mind
and not 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.

Yes, of course....but there is a difference between trusting a tested chip
(ignoring Chipzilla's fiascos) and trusting someone's tree growing algorithm.

Bob Bell






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