Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 16:31:45 EST
From: <FORSDYKE@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Newsgroups: bionet.journals.note
Subject: Author's Rights and Proc.Nat.Acad.Sci.USA

Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 15:00:41 EST
From: <FORSDYKE@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Newsgroups: bionet.journals.note
Subject: Re: Author's Rights
 <Dec.21.15.21.10.1992.3147@net.bio.net> <Dec.22.08.31.02.1992.708@net.bio.net>

Regarding John Lazzaro's defence of the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences (ref.1):
    This follows from the "Charter of Authors' Rights." proposed article 1.

"1.Judgements concerning the acceptance, reviewing and publication of a
paper should be concerned with the characteristics of the paper itself
and not with the race, sex, creed or colour of the author."(Ref.2)

    David Kristofferson (ref.3) expanded on this, implying that the character-
istics of the author might include his/her status in the heirarchy.

    If this were so, I then pointed out that the authorship discrimination
practiced by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences would aptly
reflect the principle David was espousing.
                     "Thus, publication in PNAS is largely a closed shop and
does not comply with the above principle 1 of a proposed charter of authors'
rights. The remedy would be simply for the academy to require that members
NOT submit papers from their own laboratories, or on behalf of those with whom
they have a personal relationship which might lead to bias". (ref.4)

John Lazzaro then wrote arguing that PNAS is a special case (ref.1):

"I disagree. PNAS has served well through the years as a platform for
timely and often controversial science, largely due to its publication
rules. If someone is deserving of membership in the National Academy,
they certainly can be trusted with editorial control over 24 pages a
year in a respected journal.  I view it as a collective platform for
the scientific viewpoints of senior science, not as a traditional
journal".

   In response to this I would point out that there are many very distinguished
people in US science who are NOT members of the Academy. How is it that some
distinguished scientists are in the club, but not others? If membership of the
US national academy is anything like membership of the Canadian Royal Society,
then it seems likely that politics plays some role. The idea of privileged
access to publication in a prestigious journal based on membership of some
heirarchy seems to conflict with the proposed first article.  PNAS is a collec-
tive platform for the scientific viewpoints of some senior scientists, but not
others. Sounds very un-American!
                                Sincerely, Don Forsdyke (Discussion Leader)

(1) Lazzaro, J. (1992) Bnt.jrnl.note 1228, 2324
(2) Forsdyke, D.R. (1992) Bnt.jrnl.note 1221, 1105
(3) Kristofferson, D. (1992) Bnt.jrnl.note 1222, 1631
(4) Forsdyke, D.R. (1992) Bnt.jrnl.note 1228, 1500







                                        Sincerely,
                                                  Don Forsdyke
                                                  Discussion Leader

(1) Forsdyke, D. R. (1992) Bionet.Journals.Note 1221, 1105
(2) Christoffersen, D. (1992) Bionet.Journals.Note 1222, 1631
(3) Baxter, A. (1992) Bionet.Journals.Note 1224, 750/