Jan 20 2013
Chandra Wickramasinghe is on twitter, trying to defend that awful paper claiming to have found diatoms in a meteorite. When asked why he published in the Journal of Cosmology rather than a more credible journal, he replied “because the conclusion is tentative and awaits peer review. Have patience my dear son.”.
So JoC is unreviewed. Tell me, who is just blown away by that amazing revelation?
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22 comments
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Jafafa Hots
20 January 2013 at 6:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It’s pretty bad when even his dear son questions his conclusions.
I’d disown the ungrateful little fucker.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
20 January 2013 at 6:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Gee, who would have thunk???
David Gerard
20 January 2013 at 6:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And of course the JoC still claims on its front page to be peer-reviewed.
PZ Myers
20 January 2013 at 6:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Never believed it. It’s clear from the content that JoC is a vanity journal for a small group of circle-jerking cranks.
sharkjack
20 January 2013 at 6:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The only part that surprises me is the part where they themselves admit so freely that the conclusion itself awaits peer review. It seems like such an open admission to the paper being non science that I’d expect everyone involved to dance around that kind of stuff like crazy.
Brian E
20 January 2013 at 6:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, if you’re a circle-jerking crank, your peers would be circle-jerking cranks. So, if your peers looked at your work, or just like how you circle jerk while doing that work, isn’t that a form of peer review?
David Marjanović
20 January 2013 at 6:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It awaits peer review, so he published it?
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Seriously, what next, the Chewbacca Defense?
(BTW, *hint hint* most journals flatly refuse to publish stuff that has already been published elsewhere. Very few editors would ever send it out to peer review when it’s already out!
o_O On its front page? I’ve never seen a journal state that it’s peer-reviewed on its front page. It’s usually implied in the instructions to authors. What a cargo cult!
stevenbrown
20 January 2013 at 7:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Looks like his account had been suspended…. I know very little about twitter… Does that mean it might not really be him?
Rey Fox
20 January 2013 at 7:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yeah. Good luck getting it published anywhere decent now.
tonysnark
20 January 2013 at 7:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I remember reading a book by Fred Hoyle and co-authored by Wickramasinghe many years ago, supporting the steady-state model of cosmology as opposed to the more popular big bang. Amusingly, the way they explained away the cosmic microwave background was to postulate that the universe is full of iron filings.
Jafafa Hots
20 January 2013 at 8:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Proof of creationism!
Where there are filings, there MUST be a filer!
borax
21 January 2013 at 12:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ve written a paper on the “Transmutation of Base Metals Into Higher Elements”. Unfortunately the only journal that will publish it is a tiny magazine that usually has a photo of a UFO on the cover. Being a totally real scientist, I would like funding to get my paper published in a real science publication like Time or maybe on the Huffington post. So far I have turned pure zinc into a cadmium alloy. With enough funding, I think I may be able to make lead into tin.
Lofty
21 January 2013 at 1:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I imagine that what he really means is that Lord Monckton has read it and commented favourably on it. I mean, Monkey’s a real Peer Of The Realm and all that.
michaelbusch
21 January 2013 at 1:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I am not at all surprised. I once emailed the editor of JoC, explaining why what he was writing was nonsense and telling him to stop spamming the arXiv with woo. His response was to ask me to write up a paper explaining this for publication… in JoC. Completely missing the point. I must conclude that they are being willfully dense.
@borax: Hey, transmutation is easy. When I was an undergrad at UMN, sophomore physics lab included turning sodium into magnesium (neutron bombardment is fun). Lead into gold is harder – it requires electrons and alpha particles and the cross-sections aren’t as good.
Rich Woods
21 January 2013 at 3:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Too right. Every day I turn potassium into calcium and argon. I don’t even have to visit the lab.
michaelbusch
21 January 2013 at 4:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Rich: And you even make a little antimatter too (~10 ppm of K-40 decays are by positron+neutrino, so a few thousand positrons per day are emitted by an adult human skeleton).
shouldbeworking
21 January 2013 at 7:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Careful with the antimatter. Real Americans(tm) don’t deal with that, only left-leaning liberal commies who hate the USA.
chadwickjones
21 January 2013 at 8:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
LOL! JoC! That poor website reminds me of http://www.earthage.org/
Deepak Chopra was fairly excited to have been published in the JoC… lulz!
Bill Openthalt
21 January 2013 at 10:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Is this the guy who co-authored the dreadful “Diseases from outer space” with Fred Hoyle (who, to be fair, did write some great science fiction, like “The Black Cloud”)?
David Marjanović
21 January 2013 at 12:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yes.
DLC
21 January 2013 at 2:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I could get the plot to The Beatles Yellow Submarine published in JoC.
unnullifier
23 January 2013 at 12:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And now Chandra Wickramasinghe’s Twitter account is suspended. I wonder what he did to pull that off?