As an Editor of
the Fusion Technology
– Comments by George Miley – Fusion Technology Vol. 38, p. iii (2000)
g It is with deep
sadness that I retire in June 2001 as editor of Fusion Technology (FT).
Despite the
extensive time involvement, I have immensely enjoyed serving as editor.
Discussions with authors and reviewers were continuously stimulating, and I
always enjoyed a feeling of satisfaction from providing this service to the
fusion community and to the American Nuclear Society (ANS). There were, of
course, a few downsides, largely concerned with occasional financial struggles,
debates over rejected manuscripts, and continued attempts to control paper
backlogs that slowly oscillated back and forth from being either too large or
too small as circumstances in the fusion community changed.
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Inclusion of papers
on gcold fusionh (or anomalous nuclear reactions in solids) in FT has been one of the more
controversial decisions I made as editor of FT.
Rather than rehash the issues involved, I would simply repeat my view expressed
in an early preface that it is the gresponsibility of a journal to publish
scientific work related to its field of coverage that can pass through peer
reviews.h Indeed, all papers on this topic in FT have undergone a rigorous peer review. In the early years (1987-
1990) following Pons and Fleischmannfs original announcement, reviewers ensured
that the papers were technically sound but allowed speculations about
mechanisms since the field was so new. However, starting in 1990, as the field
matured, review standards reverted to the same guidelines as other papers in FT. Further, based on discussions in the
FT Editorial Advisory Committee, an
additional reviewer from outside the gcold fusion communityh was typically
added on these manuscripts. Readers who are interested in more detail about
events during this period from my point of view as an editor are referred to an
article titled gSome Personal Reflections on Scientific Ethics and the Cold
Fusion eEpisodefh that I prepared for a fall issue of the Journal on Accountability in Researchf Policies and Quality Assurance,
Vol. 8, No. 1 (2000).h