Re: [tlug] Open Access Journals

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Stephen J. Turnbull writes:
 > Attila Kinali writes:

 >  > Hmm? How is [Waldrop's /Complexity/] interesting? Beside
 >  > mentioning of the Santa Fe Institute it does not say anything
 >  > about how research is done or how it is paid for.
 > 
 > Reread it! :-)

I have a bit more time now, let me expand.  It is true that the book
is not really about complexity at all, it's a history of the Santa Fe
Institute.  However, there are two relevant aspects.  First, it *does*
discuss the difficulty of getting funding for research that existing
expertise can't evaluate -- specifically in this case the
interdisciplinary field of "complexity theory".  These issues take
center stage in at least one whole chapter, and several other extended
passages.

Second, it *does* discuss the corresponding difficulty that field
experts have as soon as you get *near* the boundary of their field
(ie, interdisciplinary research).  That's most of the rest of the book
-- the discussion of actual complexity theory is mostly scaffolding so
the reader can grasp why such important research could be ignored for
so long.

Finally, the field of complexity theory today is rife with complete
bullshit, which gets published in excellent places on occasion (I have
an incoming colleague whose prize possession is an acceptance letter
from Physics Reviews -- the paper, while relating an amusing anecdote
which is not bullshit, is hardly valid science IMHO).  This issue is
even mentioned obliquely in the book at the end, although the book
doesn't put it in terms of "rife" and "complete bullshit". :-)
Rather, it points to the problem of "creating appropriate standards of
rigor" in the field.

Steve