5 ms·
One thing to keep in mind is that some of the papers which reviewers consider very marginal turn out to be breakthroughs. For example Jim Allison, who later won
by pasttense01 6y ago
One thing to keep in mind is that some of the papers which reviewers consider very marginal turn out to be breakthroughs. For example Jim Allison, who later won the Nobel Prize:
"Allison was hoping to be published by one of the leading peer-reviewed research journals. But nobody at Cell or Nature or any of the A-list, peer-reviewed journals was willing to publish the findings of this junior academic from Smithville, Texas. “Finally, I ended up publishing the results in a new journal called The Journal of Immunology.” It wasn’t Science or the New England Journal of Medicine, but it was in print, and in the world.
“At the end of the paper, I said, ‘This might be the cell antigen receptor, and here are the reasons why I think that it is the T-cell antigen receptor,’ and I just listed it out, all the reasons.” It was a bold announcement regarding the biggest topic in immunology. “And nobody noticed it,” Allison says. “Except in one lab.”"
https://www.wired.com/story/meet-jim-allison-the-texan-who-just-won-a-nobel-cancer-breakthrough/ https://www.wired.com/story/meet-jim-allison-the-texan-who-j...
So you really need to publish the marginal stuff to make sure the breakthrough stuff gets published as well.
- inglor_cz 6y agoKatalin Karikó, the Hungarian scientist that pioneered the mRNA research, was academically demoted at UPenn because the university considered her research as "impractical" and "waste of time" [0]. That was in 1995. In 2021, she is a hot candidate for the Nobel Prize for the very same work, which led to mRNA vaccines. [0] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/mrna-coronavirus-vaccine-pfizer-biontech?fbclid=IwAR0uTyPvEyhlia7tvlH3XFx8kVrCyx0A8IIy8ALVSrUJ8m7jV4b8E7mf-Ec https://www.wired.co.uk/article/mrna-coronavirus-vaccine-pfi...
- mattkrause 6y agoAnd in a similar vein... Douglas Prasher did a lot of the foundational work on GFP (2010 Nobel Prize) was driving a courtesy shuttle at a Toyota dealership in 2008 because he ran out of funding. Barry Marshall and Robin Warren had a really tough time convincing people that H. pylori caused stomachs ulcers (but won the 2005 Nobel Prize). Number theory was famously nothing more than an intellectual curiosity, but makes stuff like this website possible. Microbial opsins were also a weird intellectual backwater before becoming vital to neuroscience. Paul Lauterbur famously quipped that "you could write the entire history of science in the last 50 years in terms of papers rejected by Science or Nature." We are really bad at predicting the future impact of projects and people, and it's important to recognize that as a counterweight to schemes that try to select for "excellence." Things that seem laughable at the time can also be the basis for future breakthroughs, so take stupid things like Rand Pauls' ranting about silly-sounding projects with a mountain of salt.
- vorhemus 6y agoIsn't it a sign of system failure when a researcher has to beg and plead to get his results published and no one is interested in his publication until someone who understands the break through happens to stumble across it?
- ip26 6y agoMaybe? Sometimes a breakthrough isn't obvious, or can only be understood by a few people on the planet. The story of polar codes comes to mind. How is a journal committee to distinguish such papers from all the other junk?
- derbOac 6y agoI think what the parent post is suggesting is almost the opposite maybe? That those few people who should understand the significance are dismissing it.
- remus 6y ago> How is a journal committee to distinguish such papers from all the other junk? Isn't this the job of the journal, it's editors and the peer reviewers?
- namelessone 6y agocan you share the story?
- DiggyJohnson 6y agoRespectfully, isn’t addressing that question/complexity their raison d’etre?