A debate over claims of room temperature superconductivity has now boiled over into the realm of scientific publishing. Administrators of arXiv, the extensively used physics preprint server, not too long ago eliminated or refused to submit a number of papers from the opposing sides, saying their manuscripts embrace inflammatory content material and unprofessional language. ArXiv has additionally banned one of many authors, Jorge Hirsch, a theoretical physicist on the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), from posting papers for six months.
The ban is “very unfair,” Hirsch says. “I can’t work if I can’t publish papers.”
To another scientists, arXiv’s ban and elimination of papers quantity to stifling scientific debate. “The scientists that care about the issue and have the expertise to evaluate the arguments on both sides should be allowed to do so by accessing the preprints in question,” Nigel Goldenfeld, a physicist at UCSD, wrote in an e mail to a variety of physicists final week. “The alternative is that for cases such as this, we’ll return to the pre-arXiv days when the science of the day is discussed in privately circulated preprints that are not accessible to the wider community.” Daniel Arovas, one other UCSD physicist, agreed: “Squelching what is essentially a purely scientific exchange—even one where the respective parties engage in some distasteful accusations—is highly problematic.”
But arXiv directors argue the choice wasn’t about science. “There are no papers in this whole chain that were rejected because we did not like the scientific content,” says Ralph Wijers, a physicist on the University of Amsterdam who’s the preprint server’s board chair. “People’s emotions became too affected. They got acrimonious.”
Launched in 1989, arXiv has ballooned to host greater than 2 million preprints and has turn out to be a significant communication hub for physicists, astronomers, cosmologists, mathematicians, and laptop scientists. Preprints sometimes seem inside a day or two of submission, permitting close to real-time dialogue of advanced science. Physicists embraced arXiv a long time earlier than different fields turned comfy with posting articles with out peer assessment. “It’s a tremendous value to the physics community,” says Frances Hellman, a physicist at UC Berkeley, and president of the American Physical Society.
Not all of arXiv’s estimated 15,000 month-to-month submissions are accepted. Some 200 volunteer moderators scan submissions to make sure they cowl reliable scientific analysis that’s of curiosity to the group. Papers that don’t seem like scientifically sound or use “unprofessional” language may be rejected. Review boards then handle appeals.
Rejections are “rare,” maybe 1% of submissions, says Steinn Sigurdsson, arXiv’s scientific director. But moderation helps guarantee papers don’t embrace invective towards different scientists, says Paul Fendley, a theoretical physicist on the University of Oxford and an arXiv advisory committee member. “If we allow this stuff, what is the difference between arXiv and Twitter?”
Moderators believed Hirsch crossed that line in papers critiquing a 14 October 2020 Nature publication by a staff led by Ranga Dias, a physicist on the University of Rochester. The paper, reporting the invention of a hydrogen-containing materials that beneath intense strain superconducts at close to–room temperature, was hailed because the end result of a centurylong quest to create a superconductor that wouldn’t need to be chilled to ultralow temperatures. But the daring declare additionally sparked controversy.
About a month later, Hirsch requested Dias for the uncooked knowledge from among the experiments. He says Dias rebuffed him repeatedly. Eventually, Hirsch did obtain some knowledge from one among Dias’s co-authors, and in August 2021, Hirsch submitted his personal evaluation to each the arXiv and Physica C. The paper was titled “On the ac magnetic susceptibility of a room temperature superconductor: anatomy of a probable scientific fraud.” After publishing it on-line in September, Physica C eliminated the article in November as a result of it contained knowledge revealed with out the unique staff’s permission, and arXiv took it down in December.
On 29 November 2021, Dias and one among his collaborators, Ashkan Salamat, a physicist on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, posted on arXiv a response to Hirsch’s criticisms, and included a few of their uncooked knowledge. In early December, Hirsch submitted two papers analyzing these uncooked knowledge, after which adopted up with three extra papers, all of them responses to work by Dias and his colleagues. ArXiv directors blocked all 5. (Hirsch additionally says posting of a number of submissions has been delayed for weeks or extra and papers had been taken down even after they had been posted.) Last week, the positioning additionally eliminated a paper from Dias and Salamat “due to inflammatory content and unprofessional language.” Dias and Salamat didn’t reply to repeated requests for remark.
Hirsch himself defended Dias and Salamat’s paper in an e mail to arXiv directors. “It presents scientific arguments that the scientific community should be allowed to judge on their merits, rather than be prevented from doing so by your arbitrary self-righteous decorum standards.” Dias and Salamat have been invited to change the offending language of their paper and resubmit it, Wijers says. And a modified model of one among Hirsch’s papers—on which he was the second writer—was additionally reposted final week, minus a earlier assertion of information manipulation within the 2020 Nature paper.
Modification just isn’t more likely to occur with Hirsch’s different offending papers, on which he was the primary or solely writer. On 7 February, arXiv banned him from posting for six months, together with revisions of earlier papers.
Sigurdsson says he’s unable to debate the case however notes that bans can happen for causes aside from repeatedly publishing inflammatory content material. Authors will also be banned for making repeated submissions in response to particular papers and contacting arXiv directors and board members to complain—all infractions Hirsch seems to have dedicated. “We do not want to be flooded with separate comments” on single papers, Sigurdsson says. “Our moderators are a noise suppression machine.”
Other physicists fear moderators are making arbitrary selections. Moderators “seem to be too keen” about eradicating controversial papers, says Brian Josephson, a physicist on the University of Cambridge. “And we don’t know what their prejudices might be.”
Hellman says the superconductor controversy might stem partly from the ethos of physics, which has traditionally inspired combativeness. “The culture of physics is one that is more aggressive and not very welcoming,” Hellman says, which may result in accusatory language ending up in papers. She wish to see that change. “I flinch at some of the language being used.”