2 Dec 96 Yehouda Harpaz Harlequin Ltd. Barrington Hall Barrington Cambs. CB2 5RG UK Yeh_harlequin.co.uk
Dear Peter Newmark,
I have read the second review of my comments on Howard et al, and attach a detailed response to it. This reviewer has written more, and use more sophisticated maneuvers, but his review is still just a blunt effort to dismiss my comments, rather than a scientific review.
It is grossest in the answer to criticism 2, in which the reviewer starts by misquoting my comments, then misinterprets the misquote, and then 'refutes' my argument by arguing with the misquotation ([9-12] in the detailed response). I wrote:
".. the bulk of the information in the brain is not coded in level of activity (how many neurons are active in a specific region), but in the pattern of activity (which neurons are active and when)."The reviewer quotes:
"the bulk of information in the brain is not coded in level of activity, but in the pattern"My sentence was completely unambiguous, but the chopped version is ambiguous, because the result can be interpreted as:
"the bulk of information in the brain is not coded in level of activity [of each neuron], but in the [temporal] pattern [of spikes of each neuron]"The reviewer than proceeds to take this misinterpretation, and refutes it by the evidence in the second paragraph. This evidence is not relevant to the meaning of the original sentence or the whole argument. The rest of the discussion of criticism 2 is no better, and ranges from sloppy thinking to plain demagogy (see my detailed response [13-18]).
The respond to criticism 1 is less bold, but the evidence that is brought is also irrelevant, the argument from it is not to the point, and he ignores the dimensions of the stimuli that I mentioned in my criticism. This part is also full of misleading statements (see my detailed response [1-8]). The 'discussion' of criticism 3 is simply a word-game rather than a serious answer ([19-22]. The question of reproducibility, which I raised in the last paragraph but one of my comments, is ignored.
In short, this review is more akin to a political speech by a smooth politician than to an open minded scientific discussion. To reject my comments based on it is completely unacceptable. If this still does not convince you to publish my comments, I suggest that you ask a senior neuroscientist to give a signed review. Hopefully, this will avoid this kind of camouflaged garbage.
Yours
Yehouda harpaz