Recently, we’ve been following the saga of Popular Science shutting off comments, New Scientist cautiously agreeing, and then Los Angeles Times deciding to print only letters with whose point of view the editors agree, on climate change (just that subject for now, but … ).
The Times used to be a public medium whose job it was to represent public opinion on its Letters page, but it now clearly envisions some other role for itself.
In this atmosphere, it comes as something of a surprise to hear that PubMed is now accepting comments from science peers ”without the interference of journal editors and peer reviewers.”
Ah, the times we live in: It will be easier for a scientist to get a controversial interpretation of data into a journal than into a pop science mag or the daily fishwrap.