Credibility, peer review, and nature, 1945-1990

Notes and Records

Volumn 69, Issue 3, 2015, Pages 337-352

  Baldwin, Melinda ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Editorial policy; Nature ( journal); Peer review; Refereeing; Scientific journals

Indexed keywords

HISTORY; PEER REVIEW; PUBLICATION; PUBLISHING; SCIENCE; UNITED KINGDOM;

EDITORIAL POLICIES; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; LONDON; PEER REVIEW; PERIODICALS AS TOPIC; PUBLISHING; SCIENCE;

EID: 84939143239     PISSN: 00359149     EISSN: 17430178     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1098/rsnr.2015.0029     Document Type: Review

References (68)

1. J. Ziman, Public knowledge: the social dimension of science (Cambridge University Press, 1968), p. 111.
2. S. Anthony, 'CERN's Higgs boson discovery passes peer review, becomes actual science', ExtremeTech (10 September 2012) (http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/135756-cernshiggs-boson-discovery-passes-peer-review-becomes-actual-science; accessed 16 May 2015).
3. Many authors have drawn this narrative from H. Zuckerman and R. Merton, 'Patterns of evaluation in science: institutionalization, structure and function of the referee system', Minerva 9, 66-100 (1971).
4. On the 'heroic narrative' of the scientific journal, and on the historical problems with this narrative, see A. Csiszar, Broken pieces of fact: the scientific periodical and the politics of search in nineteenth-century France and Britain (PhD thesis, Harvard University, 2010), pp. 15-22.
5. Interestingly, little scholarly work has been done on the history of scientific or scholarly peer review. John Burnham has given an extremely useful overview of the history of peer review in two pieces: J. Burnham, 'The evolution of editorial peer review', J. Am. Med. Assoc. 263, 1323-1329 (1990)
6. J. Burnham, 'How journal editors came to develop and critique peer review procedures', in Research Ethics, Manuscript Review, and Journal Quality: Proceedings of a Symposium on the Peer Review-Editing Process (ed. H. F. Maryland and R. E. Sojka), pp. 55-62 (ACS Miscellaneous Publications, Madison, WI, 1992).
7. See, for example, M. Boas Hall, All scientists now: The Royal Society in the nineteenth century (Cambridge University Press, 1984)
8. A. Johns, The nature of the book: print and knowledge in the making (University of Chicago Press, 1998).
9. D. A. Kronick, 'Peer review in 18th-century scientific journalism', J. Am. Med. Assoc. 263, 1321-1322 (1990).
10. Albert Einstein, quoted in D. Kennefick, 'Controversies in the history of the radiation reaction problem in general relativity', in The expanding worlds of general relativity (H. Goenner et al.), pp. 207-234 (Springer, New York, 1999), at pp. 207-209.
11. On Nature's early history, see M. Baldwin, Making Nature: the history of a scientific journal (University of Chicago Press, 2015)
12. M. Baldwin, 'The shifting ground of Nature: establishing an organ of scientific communication in Britain, 1869-1900', Hist. Sci. 50, 125-154 (2012)
13. P. Kjærgaard, '"Within the bounds of science": redirecting controversies to nature', in Culture and science in the nineteenth-century media (ed. L. Henson et al.), pp. 211-221 (Ashgate, Aldershot, 2004).
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15. Richard Gregory to Daniel Macmillan, May 1938 (no day given), Sir Richard Gregory Papers, Special Collections, University of Sussex Library, Falmer (hereafter SRGP), 3/1.
16. There are several letters about Gale's appointment in the Macmillan Papers at the University of Reading. See Macmillan Papers, Special Collections, University of Reading Library, Reading (hereafter MP:UR), 75/30.
17. For Brimble's letter accepting the position, see Lionel J. F. Brimble to Daniel Macmillan, 12 July 1930, MP:UR, 127/130.
18. A. J. V. Gale to Sir Richard Gregory, 18 November 1938, SRGP, 3/1.
19. When the Nature staff moved offices in 1963, the vast majority of editorial correspondence was thrown away.
20. On the dating and mailing of Nature, see 'News and Views', Nature 145, 887 (1940)
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22. See 'News and Views', Nature 159, 224 (1947)
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24. 'News and Views: Soviet genetics: the real issue', Nature 165, 711 (1950).
25. Mary Sheehan, interview by author, 12 April 2012.
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30. R. Olby, The path to the double helix (University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA, 1974).
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37. M. Wilkins, The third man of the double helix: the autobiography of Maurice Wilkins (Oxford University Press, 2003).
38. This development placed pressure on commercial competitors such as Philosophical Magazine; see, for example, I. Clarke and J. Mussell, 'Conservative attitudes to old-established organs: Oliver Lodge and Philosophical Magazine', Notes Rec. 69, 321-336 (2015) (http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2015.0030).
39. On the history and status of Nature's Letters to the Editor column, see M. Baldwin, '"Keeping in the race": physics, publication speed and national publishing strategies in Nature, 1895-1939', Br. J. Hist. Sci. 47, 257-279 (2014).
40. See J. A. Stewart, Drifting continents and colliding paradigms: perspectives on the geoscience revolution (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1990), p. 188
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46. See, for example, R. S. Dietz, 'Continent and ocean basin evolution by spreading of the sea floor', Nature 190, 854-857 (1961).
47. See, for example, J. Lear, 'Canada's unappreciated role as scientific innovator', Saturday Rev. (2 September), 45-50 (1967).
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50. W. Gratzer, 'John Maddox (1925-2009)', Nature 458, 983 (2009).
51. Sheehan, interview.
52. See W. Gratzer, 'Nature: the Maddox years', nature.com (http://www.nature.com/nature/history/full/nature06241.html; accessed 9 November 2012).
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54. Peter Newmark (deputy editor of Nature) to Jacques Benveniste, 24 November 1986, personal papers of Brenda Maddox.
55. Walter Stewart to Peter Newmark (deputy editor of Nature), 15 July 1987, personal papers of Brenda Maddox.
56. A technician named Jose Alvarez was also part of the team, but his name never appeared in Nature's accounts of the investigation. See C. J. Picart, 'Scientific controversy as farce: the Benveniste-Maddox counter trials', Social Stud. Sci. 24, 7-37 (1994).
57. J. Maddox, J. Randi and W. Stewart, '"High-dilution" experiments a delusion', Nature 334, 287-290 (1988).
58. See, for example, H. Metzger and S. C. Dreskin, 'Only the smile is left', Nature 334, 375 (1988)
59. G. A. Petsko, 'Unreproducible results', Nature 335, 109 (1988)
60. P. Taylor, 'Controversy continues', Nature 335, 200 (1988)
61. G. J. Neville, 'Controversy continues', Nature 335, 200 (1988).
62. Charles Wenz, interview by author, 30 May 2012.
63. K. Snell, 'Evidence of non-reproducibility', Nature 334, 559 (1988).
64. John Maddox, interview in DVD: The secret of Photo 51, directed by Nova (2003; PBS Home Video, Arlington, VA, 2007).
65. Interestingly, this is extremely similar to the process by which Albert Einstein's famous 1905 paper 'On the electrodynamics of moving bodies' reached the pages of Annalen der Physik. Editorial board member Max Planck found it interesting and endorsed its publication without further vetting. See W. Isaacson, Einstein: his life and universe (Simon & Schuster, New York, 2007), p. 140
66. A. Fölsing, Albert Einstein: a biography (tr. Ewald Osers) (Viking, New York, 1997), pp. 146-148.
67. D. Rennie, 'Editorial peer review: its development and rationale', in Peer review in health sciences (ed. F. Goodlee and T. Jefferson) pp. 1-13 (British Medical Journal, London, 1999).
68. 'Peers reviewed', Lancet 333, 1115-1116 (1989).