LETTERS

...ERRATA We regret the omission of a book by one of our editors from the list published in the Winter 2004 issue...

...If so, their attitudes about God and capitalism were, and are, of more than "theoretical" significance...

...He says I make "no serious attempt to answer the biggest question a leftist can ask about U.S...

...It was not a conscious conspiracy, but an accumulation of tactical responses...

...Jo-Ann Mort is co-author, with Gary Brenner, of Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today's Israel...

...Because reviewers are unpaid volunteers who rarely have time to look behind the text they are presented with, it is ineffective at detecting deliberate fraud...

...And because peer review imposes a generally benign but nevertheless real censorship, it tends to perpetuate rather than correct prevalent biases...

...It is the method of testing hypotheses against data and not the institution of peer review that justifies the claim of science to greater objectivity than other realms of knowledge...

...DISSENT / Summer 2004 111...

...Editors: Dylan Otto Krider's useful article about politicized science (Dissent, Spring 2004) errs when it describes scientific peer review as a means of minimizing bias...

...The book is full of stories about encouraging victories, and resistance, and heroic people who struggled for justice and against war...

...Unfortunately, Howard Zinn seems to have missed the point of my critique (and ignores his own statements about rulers who duped Americans into fighting the Revolution and Civil War...

...To Letter Writers • We welcome succinct letters from our readers...

...Letters will not be returned to senders unless they are accompanied by stamped, selfaddressed envelopes...

...history: why have most Americans accepted the legitimacy of the capitalist republic in which they live...

...We accept e-mail submissions to editors@dissentmagazine.org, but request that you provide a street address and phone number...

...But like most human institutions, scientific peer review is limited in scope and imperfect...

...Cornell University Press, 2003...

...I wanted to concentrate on those facts, those events not usually reported...

...In 1877, Henri Lissagaray, a veteran of the Paris Commune wrote, in sadness and rage: "He who tells the people revolutionary legends, he who amuses them with sensational stories, is as criminal as the geographer who would draw up false charts for navigators...

...That's not in my book...

...I was rather concerned to write a history that would cause more Americans to challenge the legitimacy of capitalism...

...At another point in the book I talk not about conspiracy but about "the natural selection of accidents...

...It is a question that has always engaged the intellectual Left (and one that has no simple answer) but I was not writing to participate in that kind of theoretical discussion...

...Letters must be no more than 500 words, typed, double-spaced, and carry the full address and name of the sender...

...He attributes to me the idea of "conspiracy" in relation to the American Revolution and other events...

...Shouldn't a "people's history" concern itself with what most Americans actually thought...

...In dealing with the American Revolution I write: ". . . by the 1760's this local leadership [that is, the colonial elite] saw the possibility of directing much of the rebellious energy against England and her local officials...

...A sober grasp of history is likely to help activists endure and succeed better than half-truths about a monolithic elite and a people who struggle, struggle, and struggle—but seldom win...

...For instance, I did not discuss religion, obviously an important part of American culture...

...There are things missing in my book which other histories pay attention to...

...Because the peers 110 DISSENT / Summer 2004 tend naturally to think that their own research addresses uniquely important problems, incremental advances in fields where other scientists are already active are favored over papers that strike out in new directions...

...BENJAMIN Ross Silver Spring, Md...

...A copyediting error led to the misspelling of Audre Lorde's name on p. 92 of the Spring 2004 issue...

...The overwhelming reaction of readers is that they feel inspired by the book, motivated to become active...

...He is right: I don't discuss that question...

...But because we have a long lead time for each issue, you have to send us your letter within three weeks of getting an issue of Dissent in order to get it into the next issue...

...In short, rather than "analyzing" (a passive occupation) I wanted to present material which would move my readers in certain directions...

...Here's what I wrote to her: 0 yes, the Michael Kazin denunciation of my book...

...In an case, those who read my book can judge for themselves...

...That is the exact opposite of the reaction of those who read the book, judging from the huge amount of mail I receive...

...The most serious charge he makes is that my history is "cynical," "fatalistic...

...Peer review is invoked so frequently in science policy debates that this should not pass without comment...

...But it was not my intention to write a comprehensive history of the United States, or to deal with certain aspects of U.S...

...We are unable to acknowledge letters...

...We reserve the right to edit letters down to fit our space and to choose which shall be printed...

...It plays an essential role in making scientific journals useful to their readers by screening out papers that have nothing new to say, fail to support their conclusions, or contain obvious errors...

...Peer review is a valuable institution...

...The correction of bias in science is effected through open debate (often in forums not subject to peer review) and, most of all, the presentation of new data...

...history which have been dealt with elsewhere...