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In January 1861 John Tyndall, a physicist at London's Royal Institution, submitted a paper to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. The paper bore the title "On the absorption and radiation of heat by gases and vapours, and on the physical connexion of radiation, absorption, and conduction." After testing the heat-retaining properties of several gases, Tyndall had concluded that some were capable of trapping heat, and thus he became one of the first physicists to recognize and describe that basis for the greenhouse effect. A month after its submission, the paper was read aloud at a meeting of the society, and several months after that, a revised version of the paper was in print.
That path from submission to revision and publication will sound familiar to modern scientists. However, Tyndall's experience with the Philosophical Transactions—in particular, with its refereeing system—was quite different from what authors experience today. Tracing "On the absorption and radiation of heat" through the Royal Society's editorial process highlights how one of the world's most established refereeing systems worked in the 1860s. Rather than relying on anonymous referee reports to improve their papers, authors engaged in extensive personal exchanges with their reviewers. Such a collegial approach gradually lost favor but recently has undergone something of a resurgence.
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.5.9098/full/
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 22 2021, @03:13PM (2 children)
there was no peer review in the 1860s, as we understand it now: there was no barrier to publication, other than some ad-hoc criteria (mild endorsements by established scientists, or being enrolled in/having graduated some relevant institution).
in fact, as late as 1936 Einstein was surprised by the idea of a review before publication, see for instance this account of the incident: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2005/09/16/einstein-vs-physical-review/ [preposterousuniverse.com]
however, presentations before audiences are currently routine, both pre and post publication. And questions from such audiences routinely lead to alterations of papers, or new papers. well... before covid restrictions.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 22 2021, @03:34PM
Indeed you are correct. The difference was that your publications tended to circulate in "societies" that you belonged to. So in that case, the peer review was acceptance in such a society in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 23 2021, @12:38AM
The Philosophical Transactions had a sort of peer review. Go watch some of Brady Haran's Objectivity [youtube.com] episodes where they've pulled notes on whether a submission should be permitted to Phil Trans.