On 8-3-2009 18:19, Darren New wrote:
> Mueen Nawaz wrote:
>>     For a while, the paper was rejected purely because it didn't account
>> for B. The referees wanted to know how his theory ties in with B (it
>> doesn't - he was pointing out the results could be explained without
>> resorting to B altogether).
> 
> Well, that would seem to be the answer, then. :-) I guess scientists can 
> be somewhat blind like everyone else. What he needed to answer was "this 
> is how I account for the measurements that seem to imply B is 
> necessary."  If it wasn't clear enough, then he needed to clarify and 
> resubmit, I guess. Sounds like the system worked to me.

I know a couple of these situations. It really happens more than one 
would hope. Often the background is that someone influential has 
invested a lot of time in a theory and that now much of his lab depends 
on grands to look into it. Such a person will sometimes do her/his 
utmost to prevent other theories and counter data to get published. 
Eventually the other measurements and theories almost always do get 
published but there may be a delay of several years and they won't get 
into influenced journals at first. Both are a threat to the financial 
situation of the group.

Something similar is happening with the work of my PhD student. His work 
is in modelling the effect of high frequency interference on 
electronics. Here we have the problem that most people in the field are 
measuring interference, we are modelling it. Now for the second time an 
editor has to make a decision to overrule a reviewer that insists that 
we measure up to at least 1 GHz, because that is what is specified in 
the measurement regulations. We on the other hand have only measured up 
to 100 MHz because that was enough to show that the measurements matched 
our equations. (Technically we can not measure higher without special 
equipment and even then those measurements would be subject to doubt 
anyway). Some people are not able to distance themselves from their 
daily routine and really try to understand what somebody else is 
writing. It delays the process a lot and it is not nice to have to put 
pressure on the editors to force a decision.

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