On 8-3-2009 21:20, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> 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. 
> 
> It saddens me to realize I believe that people would do this 
> maliciously, rather than just being stubborn or close-minded. Sigh.
> 
Of course you can not prove that, but there are a few cases that I am 
pretty sure that is what happens. And that is only in those areas that 
are closely related to my work.

BTW once I was contemplating changing my field from cardiology to 
foundations of computer science (not so much a step as it seems). My 
main interests were (and are) however in things that could be improved 
in Dijkstra's work (I think it may be known in this group that I am a 
fan of his work ;) ). The message of people knowledgeable in that field 
was simple: Don't do it, you won't get any papers published when you 
disagree with Dijkstra.

Post a reply to this message