Carol writes (re TWiEVO 28:
Biological scientist that I am not, I found this very interesting and civil in a world that seems not to be so civil. Thank you for your kind conversation and so creative in promoting unique and needed contributions to science and life.
Anthony writes:
Herman Melville books: At first, ‘Moby Dick’ was a total flop
“…
But when Melville debuted “Moby Dick” in the United Kingdom in October 1851 (the book reached American shores a month later), many British reviewers dismissed it.
“This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact,” wrote the London Athenaeum at the time. “The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition. The style of his tale is in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed.
…
Herman Melville books: At first, ‘Moby Dick’ was a total flop
# # #
That an editor should first send a novel off to reviewers so that they can demand revisions as a condition for publication is absurd. Is it really different in the realm of Science?
If a paper requires an imprimatur, why not just post it on a lab’s Web Site with the OK of the head? Reviewers can then be just that — comments by IDed posters.
FWIW
Steve writes:
I finished listening to TWiEVO 33: Fly by virus today and then tonight I
run across this
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/massospora-parasite-drugs-its-hosts/566324/
Steve
St. Louis, MO