William Morse  wrote:-
> > Unfortunately, publishing in peer-reviewed literature is a difficult
> > task, if for no other reason than to be published, you have to back up
> > your ideas with demonstrable proof that they could at least be true.

> WM:-
> Unfortunately even that is not always enough. Apparently a canadian
> geologist named Lawrence Morley was unable to get a paper on seafloor
> spreading published in the 1960's because the idea, even though true, was
> so totally outside of the accepted wisdom at the time. Usenet groups
> suffer from the opposite problem - there is so much accepted ignorance
> (not necessarily a bad thing - the overall level of knowledge still
> increases) that even patently worthless ideas get attention.

JE:-
The main point here is that it is NOT ACCEPTABLE
that the multi billions of taxpayer's dollars that
are invested in public funded science worldwide,
should produce such a _disastrous_ group selective
event. Ideas that are "totally outside of the accepted
wisdom at the time" must be allowed to freely compete
with established views even if such competition threatens
the status of highly respected individuals. Popper
provided the only valid referee: REFUTABILITY. Only
Popper et al had the integrity to provide a format by
which the problem of free competition of ideas within
the sciences could be solved. While all ideas can be
debated, only if an idea is refutable can it be
allowed to compete. When it is not refutable it must be
excluded from competing. Many established views are NOT
refutable. I have debated this fact here for over 4 years.

Within evolutionary theory non refutable models of
refutable theory have incorrectly been allowed to
compete and win against the theory from which they
were oversimplified. My chosen example is Hamilton's
Rule. The misuse of this rule sums up everything
that has been going wrong with evolutionary over
the last 50 years.  OTOH it is totally acceptable that
"Usenet groups suffer from the opposite problem"
because these groups to not consume billions of
taxpayer's dollars in research funding worldwide.
The solution is to find a balance between these two
extreme forms of publication: highly restricted peer
review papers that have a proven track record of
incorrectly excluding testable to refutation theories
while at the same time protecting favoured non refutable
views and the self regulated "anarchy" of discussion
groups like sbe. It seems obvious to me that sbe
peer reviewed papers would be an experimental step
in the right direction to find a middle ground.

The dictatorial ivory tower mentality that science
has suffered from is now, thankfully, all but extinct.
Technology increases the flow of information and
thus the speed of accountability. To delay one
you have to delay the other. In any highly
centralised system group selective forces
can be manipulated to provide unscrupulous
individual gains. Only competition will
allow such misuse to be exposed allowing
accountability.

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher
PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105
Australia

edser{at}tpg.com.au
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