Dear Judith, I bow to your arguments. (Anyway: it is your enterprise and I don't want to run it).
YOu are right with the 'Barbarians': I was one after 100+ sci. publications and 38 patents, until Don Mikulecky forced through his RR-dinnertalk in 1997 (which I attended). I have not read biological literature. My 'general' sci. interest was dampened by the daily tasks to concentrate on. I hope I was not a closed mind and my idea in writing now was to reach so far 'unspoiled' thinking peersons who may be (actively) interested.
You are right with the peer-review situation: it is the control of the ed-in-chief WHOM to use.
The editors/publishers are mostly establishment-slaves. They need the potentates' support.
>My father was of the belief that academia is no longer an advocate of innovation or of real education in many respects. <
Exactly my ideas over the past 50 or so years - extended to a wider domain of private companies. I have also stories about innovators having been robbed - not only by the pharmaceutical industry. Some success-prone ideas will 'die' with me as well. (One example of several more): Management ignorance and policy caused once a rejection by my employing company just to watch the same thing become a success 3 years later by a different company's 'similar' patent. (Ciba Geigy vs. a Belgian Pharm.Co.) .
I appreciate your goal to open a forum for those who are continually silenced - because they "grew tired of the process and the crap you have to wade through,..." .
Regards
John M
PS (not to the topic):
I read your article in Tim's website, thank you. I would have appreciated to read it in a post-prion spirit and a bit more with a 'natural-system' oriented "unlimited controller" (it gave the idea that it refers to one of them - modelled only as a selection from the 'rest of the world'.)
Also: I am not so sure about "molecules" anymore, (pictured as conventional, visual models - representatives for certain effects observed in limited observations). 'Functions' have difficulties lately in timeless considerations (vs eg. interchanging qualia - which may not mean much of a difference after all) and 'similarity' which I consider in features within limited model selections. But that is only my problem with a text dated 2004. - JM