36 FREDM. UBER 



Since most scientists are also human, it is to be expected that 

 the reputation of a scientific worker, just as the character of a witness, 

 will weight the decision of even a scientific referee. Where workers 

 are publishing for the first time and consequently possess only a local 

 reputation, it is customary for the work to be sponsored by a known 

 scientist. The importance of a reputation for publishing reliable 

 scientific information is difficult to overestimate. In their enthusiasm 

 or desire to establish priority, some workers have a tendency to pub- 

 lish results based on insufficient data. One need not assume that 

 such individuals are intentionally dishonest, but merely that they are 

 lacking in caution, if not in experience. When an individual once 

 establishes an vmsatisfactory reputation, it may be extremely difficult 

 for his work to find acceptance even though his subsequent contribu- 

 tions may be excellent and appear in leading scientific periodicals. 



The reputation of a scientific institution may also be considered an 

 important part of the evidence. It has been stated, for example, that 

 scientists of a well known institution regarded any work done elsewhere 

 as having two strikes against it already. Although most scientists 

 would not care to make such statements publicly, it seems evident 

 that some really pay little attention to scientific publications coming 

 from certain quarters. This attitude is regrettable in that competent 

 scientific workers may well exist in almost any institution. 



The question of effective publication concerns also the related 

 additional elements of time and space. The frequency and length 

 of research articles by an individual investigator are often a matter of 

 comment. Some thoughts on this sul:),ject have been recorded in a 

 satirical vein by Clark {20), in the interests of a more mature ap- 

 proach, who contends it does make a difference how thin authors 

 slice their scientific papers. 



In the presumably faster tempo of present day scientific research, 

 it is rather doubtful that any scientist could withhold publication 

 until he had amassed such complete evidence as, for example, that of 

 Roentgen in reporting the discovery of X rays. Roentgen furnished 

 such complete proof that nothing fundamentally new regarding the 

 physical behavior of X rays was discovered for a period of sixteen 

 years, even though hundreds of papers on X rays were published 

 during that interval. Roentgen quickly got a favorable verdict from 

 his fellow scientists, partly because of the complete and convincing 

 evidence in the ])ublication itself, but mostly because his results were 

 readily reproducible within a matter of days in laboratories all over 



