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From: ethan@utastro.UUCP (Ethan Vishniac)
Newsgroups: net.physics,net.research,net.misc
Subject: Re: Re: Velikovsky, Einstein and peers
Message-ID: <105@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Nov-85 13:31:19 EST
Article-I.D.: utastro.105
Posted: Tue Nov 26 13:31:19 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Nov-85 04:45:14 EST
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Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
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Xref: watmath net.physics:3638 net.research:365 net.misc:8931

> Hey, Alan, the idea was NOT to help cranks get published,
> but rather to help worthwhile ideas that are too far off
> the beaten track to get sympathetic review from "peers".
> There IS a difference.  The yellow issues of Il Nuovo
> Cimento used to carry a substantial amount of the latter,
> articles which Phys. Rev. D would not touch.  I found
> several of them very good, while others were silly.  But
> no sillier than what Phys. Rev. D routinely publishes!
> 
> I think the main difference between crank literature and
> off-beat literature is that the crank is ignorant whereas
> the purveyor of off-beat ideas understands the "accepted"
> point of view but disagrees with it.

Well, this is close, but I would say that the crank may or may not
be ignorant of facts, but is incapable of following scientific logic.

Also, I think your comment about Phys.Rev.D is slightly hyperbolic.
The sin they usually commit is preferring correct, but boring, work to
speculative, but interesting work.  The real problem any journal faces
in publishing speculative stuff is the difficulty anyone has in drawing
the line between the presently unverifiable and the intrinsically
unverifiable.  From a scientific point of view the latter is even more
boring than steam tables.  Journals that err too frequently by
publishing flakey stuff cause their readers to drift away.  I don't
see any solution to the problem.
-- 
"Superior firepower is an      Ethan Vishniac
 important asset when          {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan
 entering into                 ethan@astro.UTEXAS.EDU
    negotiations"              Department of Astronomy
                               University of Texas