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Re: Yet More Nicholls vs Morgan
Phil Nicholls (pn8886@csc.albany.edu)
10 Jan 1995 12:58:03 GMT
In article <1995Jan9.161224.3002@henson.cc.wwu.edu>,
Phillip Bigelow <n8010095@henson.cc.wwu.edu> wrote:
>pn8886@csc.albany.edu (Phil Nicholls) writes:
>
>Phil Nicholls, responding to Elaine Morgan and her book, writes:
>
>>In _Scars of Evolution_ you cite in the notes to chapter 4 an
>>article by Pete Wheeler which appears in the Journal of Human
>>Evolution, 1985 volume 14 (Your citation places it in volume 42,
>>which does not currently exist for the Journal of Human
>>Evolution. You also have the wrong page numbers).
>
> If Morgan had bothered to send her work in for peer-review, it is
>probable that these mistakes may have been caught. As it stands, there are
>a few possible explainations for this error:
> 1) Morgan never really read the source material.
> 2) Morgan made a mistake in transcribing the reference.
> 3) Morgan's book editor wouldn't know the difference between a correct
>reference and a incorrect reference.
>
>#3 is often the case with books that are not peer-reviewed.
>
> There are many advantages to publishing in science journals. The only
>down-side is that there is no financial profit for the author.
> <pb>
>
Actually I have found errors in citations in peer reviewed articles as
well. Editors check for obvious errors and in this case they might have
caught this one because the volume and pages are the same as those in
the article listed immediately above it.
My interest in pointing out this error are (1) It can be corrected
in the next edition of her book and in future books (I use a bibliographic
database to keep track of references and if you enter the data incorrectly
it comes out incorrectly) and (2) to note that in the same volume there
were additional articles discussing sweating and hairlessness. Most
likely Elaine got the article in the form of a reprint by writing directly
to Wheeler so she missed these articles. I try not to use reprints
for this very reason -- going to the journals is a good way to stumble
across other interesting materials.
--
Philip "Chris" Nicholls Department of Anthropology
Institute for Hydrohominoid Studies SUNY Albany
University of Ediacara pn8886@cnsunix.albany.edu
"Semper Alouatta"
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