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