Peer-review failures occur all too often. I have experienced them twice myself. Subsequent remarks describe each failure.

My daughter is in third grade. Up until this year, math was her favorite subject. Even though she struggled with it, she enjoyed it …. This year is awful—she can’t seem to grasp the basics of subtraction …. [What] can you suggest for someone who used to love [math], but is fast developing a phobia?

The process of borrowing from higher-order digits, especially when they are zero (sometimes several consecutive zeros), was giving the child fits. The mother asked for some advice for her daughter.

In 1949, I too was learning to subtract, and I disliked the way the school was teaching the subject; so at age 8, I devised a way to subtract by adding. I have used it ever since then. I went on to get a BA in mathematics and a PhD in Accounting; so I understand addition and subtraction well. So I wrote a 7-page paper explaining my way of subtracting which uses nothing but addition in solving subtraction problems. My method eliminates the need to borrow from higher-order digits (aka regrouping)!

Students typically learn addition before learning subtraction; so if they are taught my method of subtraction, the learning is simple because they already have learned to add. So instead of having to learn 2 methods involving 2 modes of thought (one for addition and another for subtraction), they only need to learn one method and one mode of thought (namely, that of addition) to solve addition and subtraction problems.

Before sending my paper to a journal, I asked Dr. Barry Wilbratte (former Chairman of the Finance Department at the University of Saint Thomas in Houston) for comments on my paper. He replied by saying:

Very clever method of “subtracting.” A principal advantage [of it] is that you only have to “carry” to one column at a time. I plan to internalize your method and use it in essentially every case except subtraction of a single digit from another single digit (e.g., 8 – 2). I hope to teach it to my grandchildren.

After reading Barry’s comments, I submitted the paper (titled “A Better Way to Subtract”). I identified myself simply as “Bill Bailey.” I said nil about my academic pedigree.

The journal’s female editor had 3 reviewers and an 11-member board evaluate my paper. The editor rejected my paper, and she sent me the reviewers’ and board’s comments/criticisms of my paper. None of those 14 persons had even 1 positive comment about my paper or method of subtraction! So I sent her my written rebuttal to every one of their criticisms, several of which I termed “Mickey Mouse”. I then told the editor of my degrees and the time I spent as a university professor. She replied by urging me to resubmit my paperthis time to the journal’s “In My Opinion” column. I declined saying, “The virtues of my way of subtracting are not a matter of ‘opinion’; they are a matter of ‘objective evaluation’.”

One of the 5 books I have written is titled “Education and Its Management.” That book’s Chapter 3 contains the aforesaid 7-page paper of mine. Chapter 4 has 2 parts. Part 1 is Barry Wilbratte’s positive evaluation of my method of subtracting. Part 2 contains the 14 reviewers criticisms and my rebuttal, which I sent to the journal’s editor.

Case 2. Also in 2009, I submitted a paper (then titled “Theories, Paradigms, and Falsificationism” but now titled “Thomas Kuhn Was Dead Wrong re Theories, Paradigms, and Falsification”) to The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. Its co-editors then were Alexander Bird and James Ladyman. They rejected my paper without giving a reason for the rejection. In 2017, I learned that in the year 2000, Mr. Bird’s book titled “Thomas Kuhn” was published. Mr. Bird’s book is pro-Kuhn; my paper is anti-Kuhn; so Messrs. Bird and Ladyman should have recused themselves from all roles involving 'paper’s publication, but they didn't. Ergo, they behaved unethically. This website of mine has a special section devoted to “Bird and Ladyman” (see this website’s home page). That section explains fully and publicly the disgusting conduct of 2 university professors who in 2009 co-edited a prestigious scholarly journal. That section of my website has existed for a year. Surely Messrs. Bird and Ladyman have read it. Neither man has contacted me.