Comment M An odyssey suspect that some of you reading this comment have research groups that periodically discuss articles from the research section of ES&T. Perhaps, you ask one person to critique the article; perhaps, you give it to the group as a whole. At your next group meeting, you lead the group through a discussion of the article: the experimental methods, the results section, and the discussion. Periodically, an article appears that is very close to the work in your research group, and you are convinced that it is flawed. You try to get your group to see the defect for themselves, and eventually, most of them do. Some of the more assertive members of the group are very critical of the author. Perhaps in years past, while reading ES&T, you have seen an article that you really have problems with. You think you see a fatal flaw and you want to discuss it with your peers. Giving it to the research group is not enough. So, you walk down the hall and share your concerns with a couple of colleagues. One agrees with you; the other is less convinced that the flaw is fatal. You think about it that evening and realize that there is an experiment that you can run that will determine whether you or the authors of the article are correct. Five weeks later, you send a paper to a journal that you feel proves your point. Ten years later, a similar thing happens. But now, instead of going down the hall to discuss the controversial article, you send an e-mail message to four of your closest colleagues, some of whom are a thousand miles away from you, and tell them about your analysis. For the next few days, you have an active e-mail dialogue with them and five other colleagues who join the discussion. Spurred on by the group, you send a Correspondence to the Editor, which is eventually published. There is no conclusion, but a lot of good ideas come from the discussion.
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Ten more years later, a member of your group is surfing the Internet and does a search in your area of expertise. She comes across a Web site that has reviewed one of your articles. There is a counter on the Web site that indicates it has been visited several hundred times. It is a kind review, and you feel gratified that someone out there appreciates your work. And then you think: What if the reviewer had been hostile and extremely critical of your paper? You realize that you would have been angry that the critique had not been carried out in a letter to the editor, and hurt if the author was someone you thought was a friend. And then you realize that things have changed. The Internet has made it possible for someone to review your work in the light of cyberspace, without peer review, and without any recourse on your part. You cannot rebut directly; you simply have to hope that the value of your future work will vindicate you. Do we need some way to control unofficial Web-based reviews that are not themselves peer-reviewed, or to punish people who write them? Or is the Internet a new mechanism with a different set of rules for the discussion of scientific research that will eventually lead to better science? My guess is that this discussion is just beginning.
William H. Glaze, Editor (
[email protected])
MARCH 1, 2001 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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