[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your post, Phaedrus!!!

I strongly agree with your high regard for Physics and for the ethics that dominates the work of physicists and mathematicians.

And I do see an "end justifies the means" tenet among all the historical sciences - obviously evolution, but also archeology, anthropology, Egyptology, etc. The absence of evidence in the historical record leads to speculation, "just so" stories to fill the gaps. This would not be so troubling were it not for the peer review process and the politics of the academia.

In the end, the layperson such as I am, must remember that all of these theories emanating from the historical sciences may be the result of a committee, a group-think.

And of course, any democracy of this sort would be influenced by the very things Popper mentioned in his essay excerpted at post 47.

[Phaedrus]

This would not be so troubling were it not for the peer review process and the politics of the academia.

Well said, A-G.

[Stultis]

In the end, the layperson such as I am, must remember that all of these theories emanating from the historical sciences may be the result of a committee, a group-think.

Obviously, you've never been to a scientific conference. It's no different in the "historical" sciences than in any other field. There are always plenty of colleagues ready and eager to ripe your theory to shreds.

[Doctor Stochastic]

I can tell you that peer review is not a problem as to content of scientific papers. I have been a reviewer and a reviewee. The main purpose is to catch gross errors (like 2+2=5) and typos and to just see if an article is fit for a particular journal. I have sometimes that an article would be better served in other journals than the one I'm reviewing for; this is generally to get a wider audience for the paper.

The only whining I've seen about peer-review suggests to me that it works. There's lots of nut-cases who submit papers on things like the "Aliens who Kidnapped Kennedy from the Grassy Knoll" and stuff. Peer review weeds out this type of stuff.

If you have a suggestion to improve the system, by all means make it.