Email From: Steven Lehar March 29, 2004 sent link to this on-line letter.
To: Paul Bloom, editor, Behavioral & Brain Sciences,
In response to this rejection of my paper on Harmonic Resonance Theory. See also my Formal Complaint to his rejection, and Paul Bloom's thoroughly unsatisfactory response to my formal complaint.
Dear Professor Bloom,
The published Aims and Scope of the Behavioral & Brain Sciences Journal state: "Particularly significant and controversial pieces of work are published."
The theory that spatial standing waves in the brain represent the spatial structures that we experience is a particularly significant, and obviously controversial piece of work.
The published Instructions for Contributors of the Behavioral & Brain Sciences Journal lists eight “appropriate rationales for seeking Open Peer Commentary.” The Harmonic Resonance theory meets all eight requirements. (1) It bears in a significant way on some current controversial issues in behavioral and brain sciences. (2) Its findings substantively contradict some well-established aspects of current research and theory. (3) It criticizes the findings, practices, or principles of an accepted or influential line of work. (4) It unifies a substantial amount of disparate research. (5) It has important cross- disciplinary ramifications. (6) It introduces an innovative methodology or formalism for broader consideration. (7) It meaningfully integrates a body of brain and behavioral data. (8) It places a hitherto dissociated area of research into an evolutionary or ecological perspective.
If THIS paper is not merely rejected for publication, but not even accepted for review, then BBS should make it clear in their Instructions for Authors that: “Only theories that remain safely within the bounds of generally accepted paradigms of neurocomputation will even be considered for publication!”
This is what is wrong with the so-called "peer review" (Hah!) system!