Apropos “peer review” Martin Hertzberg, sent me an amusing note last week:
“When people ask me how can I possibly disagree with all the Nobel Prize winners who have signed on to the theory of the human causation of global warming, I tell them the Einstein story of the ‘Anti- Relativity Society’.
“After Einstein left Berlin and after Hitler took over, the Nazis were not happy with Relativity Theory, which of course they didn't understand, and which they considered a ‘Jewish science’. There were many distinguished German scientists who were eager to please their new masters, some of them even Nobel Prize winners, so they formed an ‘Anti-Relativity Society’ that published papers trying to show that Einstein's theory of Special Relativity, was wrong.
“When Einstein was asked about it later, he smiled and responded to the effect that if his Special Theory of Relativity was really wrong, it didn't take an army of physicists or Nobel Laureates to prove him wrong: just one physics student with a single experiment or observation that contradicted his theory, would suffice!
“One can be sure that all the publications in the Anti-Relativity Journal were peer reviewed. My experience in reviewing papers and in having my papers reviewed, has caused me to reject the whole idea of "anonymous" peer review. The potential for abuse is too great. When I reviewed papers, I always insisted that the Journal Editor inform the author that I was the reviewer and was prepared to support my review openly. Planck himself was the only one who reviewed Einstein's seminal 1905 papers. Zeitschrift fur Physik was his Journal and everyone knew who the reviewer was.”
Martin Hertzberg’s papers, incidentally, are being scanned by CounterPunch business manager Becky Grant, a task postponed last week because Becky was in Utah with her family attending the wedding of her sister Tiffany, who is the designer of our CounterPunch Books.