Physical Review Letters是公认的报道最前沿最基础物理学研究的期刊。但也存在潜规则。某些主流科学家利用潜规则无情地打击扼杀不同的学术观点。最近我写了个Comment,批评某个副主编(Divisional Associate Editor,DAE)的一篇PRL文章,用三个简单的例子来证明作者提出的物理模型是违反相对性原理的。被退了三次,其中包括一次Appeal。三个审稿人两个是DAE,根本都讲不出道理了,还是把我退了。下面是Appeal后副主编评审报告的退稿理由:
I do not recommend publication of this Comment. As to the putative conflict of Bxxxx's PRL with special relativity, casual readers might think that Wxxxx has a point, but almost certainly Bxxxx would publish a Reply that in my opinion (and probably that of the second referee) would likely convince readers that Wxxxx's claim is without merit. I think therefore that publication of Wxxxx's Comment would not add anything useful to the already large literature on the subject.
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Wxxxx----代表我,Bxxxx---代表PRL副主编,我的Comment就批评他的PRL文章。我的Appeal的评审人是另一个副主编。
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一个Comment的评审报告的基本要求是:对Comment提出的批评是否正确,是否重要要作出判断。然而这个评审报告用模棱两可的话来引导编辑得到评审人想要的结论。报告本身并没有直接指出我的批评对不对,也没有说原作者Bxxxx的辩护论点对不对,只是说如果原作者Bxxxx发表一个Reply的话很可能会驳倒我。这不是一种猜测吗,也能算可靠的论据?还故意误导性地使用“putative” 一词来蒙编辑。这稿子退得很叫人不服气。