Re: Sobral and Langer 2008 (was pteros have lift-off)

[Augusto Haro <augustoharo@gmail.com>]

I just want to state as a disclaimer that I am not up against peer review.

> Of course, you may publish anywhere you like...  Or submit to an internet 
> blogspot.  But you have to be prepared for the prospect of your work being 
> ignored by the scientific community.  It all depends on what your target 
> audience is, and whether you want your ideas to have 'equal time' to those 
> published in scientific journals.

That's a price to pay, true. Another price may be that some scientists
will consider themselves offended for not following the accepted rules
and will not have good will for one (which I may pay in the future for
this defense of alternative publication in the extreme case of
rejection I described above).

But I think that is better that not publishing your ideas at all,
ideas that you sincerely think are right or at least, logical
hypotheses.

I don't want to lecture anyone, but let's suppose you have an original
idea you think is right and anybody else think is wrong. Perhaps this
didn't happened to you, and perhaps it is hard to put oneself in the
place of somebody with this problem. Everybody criticizes your idea,
yet you think their criticisms are wrong or biased. Your paper got
rejected a number of times. Would you force yourself to mutism in such
a case? or would you try to get those ideas to surface, for they at
least to be known? In this I'm not stating one is right and the other
not.

Sorry David Peters for this (not trying to offend you), but I think
most persons out of him do not believe in his methods and restorations
of soft tissues for pterosaurs. That hypothesis will likely make its
pass through peer review. Yet he honestly thinks his restorations to
be right, and I think he has the right to difund them (somewhat like
Rousseau said).

Finally, with respect to the merits of a "rogue" idea, which I on
purpose put aside until now, it may be mostly crap (not talking of any
particular rogue idea now), but among a lot of crap there can be a
valuable "sub-hypothesis" or statement. And, even if among "rogue"
thinkers many works are crappy, there may be some, or some particular
renegades, with good and logical ideas. That's why I would give rogue
ideas at least a check.

Cheers

Augusto.