Should scientific papers be anonymous?
At the root of this proposal is the fantasy that scientists would somehow be selfless adherents to the alter of the scientific method. They give up all honor, pride and recognition so that the &quot;scientific method&quot; be protected from the often selfish desires of human beings.<p>In the real world, having names on papers is a really good thing. In real academia, I&#x27;ve heard professors say &quot;well that work was done by so-and-so, and they&#x27;re bad researchers so I don&#x27;t trust their results&quot;.<p>There&#x27;s this popular misconception that just because something is published in a peer-reviewed journal that it must be true. Nobody in research actually believes that. All it means is the authors were able to convince the reviewers and the peer reviewers to publish it.