Einstein’s world changing paper, “The electrodynamics of moving bodies” would not be publishable today. He was not an academic, his paper lacked citations, and so on and so forth
In June of 1905, when he submitted “The electrodynamics of moving bodies”, he had a PhD in physics and had already published several papers in the same journal
Many of which would also be unpublishable today.
it’s not as though Einstein would have been unable to add the appropriate references if the journal had expected it.
The references are so that the editor knows where to send it for peer review and to reference the existing consensus to demonstrate orthodoxy.
Galileo ridiculed what we now call peer review as a team of carthorses.
The effect of peer review is to discover truth through authority, orthodoxy and consensus, without the slow, tedious, and inconvenient necessity of examining the world—and that is why “The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” would today be unpublishable.
Many of which would also be unpublishable today.
The references are so that the editor knows where to send it for peer review and to reference the existing consensus to demonstrate orthodoxy.
Galileo ridiculed what we now call peer review as a team of carthorses.
The effect of peer review is to discover truth through authority, orthodoxy and consensus, without the slow, tedious, and inconvenient necessity of examining the world—and that is why “The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” would today be unpublishable.