
Hate the peer-review process? Einstein did too - sndean
https://theconversation.com/hate-the-peer-review-process-einstein-did-too-27405
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dalke
> In his brilliant career, the only time his work was subjected to blind peer
> review – the authors don’t know the reviewers and vice versa - he showed
> contempt for what is now the gold standard of science ... The story reminds
> us that double-blind peer review is only a relatively recent invention.

I believe the author has confused anonymous (or "single blind") peer review
with double blind peer review. That is, I don't think the Einstein-Rosen paper
was subject to double blind peer review, which didn't really come into use for
another ~20 years, and in sociology.

Double blind peer review is not the gold standard for peer review. It is the
gold standard for medical trials. I suspect the author has confused the two.

> He then send it to a reviewer for comments – his selected reviewer was
> probably the famously gossipy Howard Percy Robertson, one of Einstein’s
> colleagues at Princeton.

"Probably"? What is the source for this doubt?
[http://www.geology.cwu.edu/facstaff/lee/courses/g503/Einstei...](http://www.geology.cwu.edu/facstaff/lee/courses/g503/Einstein_review.pdf)
is a copy of the September 2005 Physics Today article on the topic. It shows a
copy of the Physical Review logbook. The caption for Figure 5 is:

"""The Einstein–Rosen article was received by the journal on 1 June 1936.
After a delay of more than a month, John Tate sent a referral to Howard Percy
Robertson on 6 July, finding him in Moscow, Idaho, on vacation after a
sabbatical at Caltech. Robertson returned the manuscript and his review to
Tate on 17 July. Six days later the package was sent back to Einstein."""

