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...Before the war of 39-45, when a journal refused to publish a work, the person making that decision was known and therefore took that responsibility. Their attitude could be publicly denounced. The referee system subjects the scientist to a system against which, in the end, they remain without recourse.
| COSMOGONIA Journal of cosmology and theoretical physics rue de l'Agora Euboea 58340 Macedonia Publication Director: Pr. Aristotle. Mr. Nicolas COPERNIC Rue du Vieux Moulin, 7 2304 Gdansk Poland. Euboea, 30 Oct 381 BC Reference: D-5703 Dear Sir ...I have read your article "De revolutionibus orbivm coelestivm" with the greatest attention and interest. *Your model is appealing,but alas absurd. As everyone knows, objects can only move if a force is exerted on them. Moreover, obviously, heavy objects are more sensitive to forces than light objects. Do a simple experiment: drop a pebble and a feather. The pebble falls to the ground faster. Base yourself on simple, observable facts. If the Earth moved, as you claim, it is that it would be subject to a force. For nothing moves, in the universe, that is not subject to one. Therefore we humans would also be bathed in this force field. Everything that swarms on its surface would also undergo its effect, including ourselves. As we are lighter, the Earth would leave and we would stay in place like idiots. .....I am sorry, but I must refuse your article. Pr. Aristotle Publication Director |
| COSMOLOGIA International Journal of Astronomy and Cosmology Uraniborg 26120 Danmark Publication Director: Pr. Tycho Brahe. Mr. Nicolas COPERNIC Rue du Vieux Moulin, 7 2304 Gdansk Poland. Uraniborg, 6 February 1590 Reference: A-4428 ...........Dear Sir, ....I have read your article "De revolutionibus orbivm coelestivm" with the greatest attention and interest. ....This idea of a moving Earth is not new, but has never withstood analysis. If the Earth revolved around the sun, then nearby stars would present an apparent motion relative to the background of the sky, to the distant stars, by parallax effect. Stars that belong to our celestial vault, which we**now know well enough and whose bodies are millions of leagues away from us. These are not all at the same distance, as you are not unaware, the faintest being obviously the most distant. ...Let us take a simple image. Place your finger in front of your nose. Close one eye, then the other. Your finger will**stand out differently against the surrounding decor. As for your eye, it would simply represent two diametrically opposite positions**of the Earth on this circular orbit that you imagine. ...Now look at the sky. The stars are motionless, whatever the day of the year. No one has ever been able to demonstrate the slightest deformation of the constellations. So you must face the evidence: your model of a wandering Earth does not hold up. .....The movement of the planets, which has been the subject of numerous studies for four centuries, is now well known. See in particular: C. Ptolemy, Almagest, Elements of Mathematical Composition, doctoral thesis ( 231 AD ) in the chapter "epicyclic movements of the planets", page 77. A work that is very certainly in your university's library, and where all these things are clearly explained. .........I am sorry, but we are obliged to refuse your article. Pr. Tycho Brahe Publication Dir. |
...Editors are masters after God in their journals. There exists no higher authority, no law. The system is customary. The world of research has neither a Keeper of the Seals nor a Supreme Court. In the French system, the generalization of decision-making by committees, in particular for recruitment and promotions, under the pretext of democratic functioning, has proved in practice, according to Souriau, worse than the mandarin system, so execrated before 1968.
...A researcher carrying an innovative idea is by definition "non-standard", marginal. Otherwise they are merely a civil servant of science.
...Although de Gaulle said " of researchers who search, one finds some. Of researchers who find, one looks for them " recruitment by the CNRS and the University emphasizes "the profile", integration into the general effort, agreement with existing research programs, to avoid "sprinkling and scattering of credits". But innovation and normalization do not go together.
...Pure, fundamental research is neglected in favor of applied research, a generator of profits. Brilliant and creative minds therefore tend to turn away from the former, unless they accept from the outset that their career will take on the appearance of an apostolate.
...Entering the world of research is, for a young person, an increasingly difficult process. The average age of entry to the CNRS is for example thirty. Progression is problematic. Any marginalization, or excess of innovation engenders an immediate career blockage and a difficulty, even an impossibility, of publishing work results. Conversely a mediocre researcher, knowing how to skillfully play the peer-reviewed journal system, endlessly churning out minor works can accumulate publications, and thus give the illusion of an intense research activity. "Management abilities" are also rewarded and not the ability to impel research. The vast majority of research activity has become a vast civil service.
...When a young researcher, or candidate researcher (since many years will now pass before they can stabilize in this profession) becomes aware of this situation, they are confronted with two choices:
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Either they decide to persist in non-standard ideas, therefore disturbing, even a source of a powerful "socio-immunological" reaction. Then they will have to pay the high price, this choice possibly purely and simply forbidding them access to a position.
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Or they will decide to fit into the mold by realizing that the system by no means requires them to create genuinely new things. They will therefore accept censoring themselves. As time passes, this self-censorship mechanism will very quickly become unconscious. Many young researchers are thus sterilized.
...According to Souriau, it is this phenomenon that is the main cause of the sterility of the scientific world for nearly half a century.
...Until a very recent date, the researcher did not even have the means to express themselves. Indeed the popular science journals, which ply their readers with "discoveries", which are most often only new technological advances, therefore applications of an already old fundamental body, are part of the system. The general public is fed pseudo-events.
...I cite an example. Recently, a high-circulation journal headlined on its front page "the mystery of gamma flashes finally solved". One might have expected, therefore, the presentation of an explanatory model. It was nothing of the sort.
The news was simply a beginning of a link between the phenomenon and the localization of a possible source. .
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