This country has a fine and longstanding tradition of free scientific speech, conducted through the  printing and dissemination of new, often controversial, ideas. In most instances, in the distant past, this was in the form of privately-funded monographs which were circulated and often presented by the authors at meetings of 'philosophical' societies. Most of the world's fundamental discoveries and developments were published and 'forced' onto the scientific public by private researchers who were convinced of the correctness, importance, and value of their work. Consider the following questions with their obvious answers:

Was Newton's 'Theory of Gravitation' peer reviewed? Did a team of scientists have to visit the orchard to watch the fabled apple fall? No!

Was Boole's work on Boolean logic (on which all modern

computer programming is based) peer reviewed? No!

Was Einstein's 'Special Theory of Relativity' peer reviewed? No!

Was Charles Darwin's 'The Origin of Species' peer reviewed? No!

Was Wallace's earlier work on species peer reviewed? No!

(He sent his work to Charles Darwin who rapidly published

his own work to beat Wallace to the punch.)

Was 'De Metallica' peer reviewed? No!

Today we are blessed with the internet, and so Professor Roberts doesn't have to print his work on paper and hand out a few copies. No, he can do what he does here - put it out on the internet and thus allow anyone who is interested to read it - worldwide!

Peter Roberts  HEALTH

Monographs, Selected Papers, Presentations, and other professional works