Saturday, July 18, 2009

Preprint servers and string theory evolution

Server arXiv.org is a vast online repository of physics papers, most of which are uploaded before they have passed muster by refereeing. Recently, increasing amount of scientists, testified that none of their papers are accepted and others are forcibly recategorized by the administrators of the arXiv either due to the controversial nature of their work, or it not being canonical to string theory, in what amounts to intellectual censorship. We should realize, the main (if not the only reason) of preprint servers is to maintain priority of scientific work - without it all ideas could be presented in private blogs for the sake of recency without problems. From these and possibly another reasons (1, 2) a viXra.org portal has been launched recently by "independent physicist" Phil Gibbs as a functional alternative to arXiv.org.

What happened here? The following lines are illustrating my private understanding of the whole story at general level from exsintric perspective of outer observer:

Because string theory was never accepted by mainstream in its entirety due the "lack of falsifiability", string theorists have started to use arXiv portal as their alternative publishing platform like squatters, thus by-passing standard process of peer-review of mainstream physics. They claimed on public, the dynamic character of string theory development requires faster public exchange of ideas, then the standard peer-review process can provide. Now string theory is forty years old theory (like "..old woman wearing way too much lipstick.." by Robert B. Laughlin) and arXiv server was always considered as an alternative publishing platform, especially by mainstream peer-reviewed journals (Science or Nature journals in particular), which were often hostile to preliminary publishing of scientific articles from apparent "conflict of interests" reasons (1, 2, 3).

As the result, former squatters have begun to consider arXiv server as their native or even private publishing platform and they started to displace proponents of another alternative theories by general paradigm "young anarchists - old conservatives". It's significant, well known proponent of string theory Lubos Motl is both opponent of squatters, both opponent of viXra.org due the "lack of credibility" by now - i.e. from the very same reason, from which string theorists were forced to publish their work on arXiv server before some time - although squatting chaos corresponds well the conceptual chaos of string theories and Mr. Motl himself was in strong opposition to mainstream (Google translation) represented by Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in his young age.

Now we can observe formation of new opposition and we can expect, whenever such alternative becomes significant, a new independent publishing group will be established on its base - and so on.. Such evolution is quite common in social groups and it fits the AWT model of nested condensation of Aether particles well - so we can consider it as easily predictable in AWT context. While we should appreciate the responsibility, rigorousness and acuracy of formal approach represented by string theory, we shouldn't overlook the conceptual vagueness of this approach based on internal inconsistency of postulates and the lack of understanding of subject at general level. Instead of it, Aether concept is based on deep insintric plurality of concepts and mainstream scientists, some string theorists in particular should learn plurality in thinking by now. From this perspective, formation of vi@Xra server is the first step in this direction.

7 comments:

Zephir said...

How widespread is censorship between mainstream preprint servers and who is responsible for it?

Zephir said...

By Lisi Garrett own words, he submitted his famous E8 paper to gr-qc. It was then moved to hep-th, then to gen-ph, then back to hep-th (where it remains), all very quickly. The arxiv administrators either decided the paper wasn't so bad after all, or they didn't want such a high profile paper (judged by downloads) in gen-ph because then people might look to gen-ph for interesting papers. Either way, he was highly amused by this. For example, they censor papers like this one.

Zephir said...

For example, D. R. Lunsford’s major paper, published in
Int. J. Theor. Phys., v 43 (2004), No. 1, pp.161-177, was submitted to arXiv.org but was
removed from arXiv.org by censorship apparently since it investigated a 6-dimensional
spacetime which again is not exactly worshipping Witten’s 10/11 dimensional M-theory. It is still
available
on the CERN document server and it shows the errors in the attempts by Kaluza, Pauli, Klein, Einstein, Mayer, Eddington and Weyl. Lunsford
himself suggests that
string theorists (such as JD, U. of T.?) censored it off arXiv.

Zephir said...

In publicly available physicsword article where Peter Woit argues there is a "pro-string-theory" bias
among moderators because "trackbacks" to his entries on his blog Not Even Wrong that criticize preprints on string theory and multiverses are removed...

Zephir said...

Quote from arXiv's endorsement criteria  'We don't expect you to read the paper in detail, or verify that the work is correct, but you should check that the paper is appropriate ... You should not endorse the author ... if the work is entirely disconnected with current work in the area.' The elitist endorsement system has been described by Professor Distler who was involved with the arXiv system, on March 6, 2006: "The endorsement system is rather odd, when you think about it. It resembles nothing more than an old-boy’s Club where, to become a member, you need to be “introduced” by an existing member."
It appears that the Arxiv is censoring a few scientists, or at least making it harder for them to submit papers there. Among them apparently is Marni, as well as Carl Brannen, a guy who does independent research on theoretical physics. Marni Dee Sheppeard has had trouble getting her papers through the filters of the Arxiv.  Other examples (such as Tony Smith) have been denounced in the past. Carlos Castro history against Ginsparg (arXiv.org). The impression is that the filter acts on names, and not just on content. Tommaso Dorigo had an idea to find a highly respectable person to put their name on a paper, as an experiment to see if the paper might be publishable.

Zephir said...

Case Histories Describing Scientists' Experiences of Being Prevented from Posting Papers to ArXiv.org

Zephir said...

Turner described string theory as an “empty vessel,” and added: “the great thing about an empty vessel is that we can put our hopes and dreams in it.”

http://phys.org/news/2015-10-years-einstein-theory.html