CCL: On "defending" and "opposing" science

 Sent to CCL by: "Mezei, Mihaly" [mihaly.mezei-.-mssm.edu]
 Greetings,
 This thread has touched upon many important issues so I feel justified to
 include one more: the abdication of responsibilities of many editors. Like one
 of the posters' experience where an editor ignored a referee suggestion because
 of two other referees' opposing view, I had editor ignoring my specific
 arguments against a referee's (negative) argument and telling me that I have to
 convince that referee (not him). I suggest that the community insist of the
 editors being more than simple vote counters; instead they should actively
 arbitrate the discussion between the author(s) and referees. This way there
 would be less need for a post-publication discussion. There is, of course,
 always the avenue of publishing a comment on a paper in the traditional way.
 Mihaly Mezei
 Department of Structural and Chemical Biology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
 Voice:  (212) 659-5475   Fax: (212) 849-2456
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