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Originally Posted by A.DIM
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Inflation, SuperString, Mbrane theories are all minority opinions?
Yes, when applied to the question of alien visitation. You have cited exactly one paper on the subject. You claimed that "our best" experts established this finding. Pointing to the general topics the authors allude to does not create support for their specific findings.
I didn't see where peer review is optional.
http://www.bis-spaceflight.com/sites.../page/187/l/en
wherein it is stated that the editor may not necessarily choose to contact referees for a submission.
How do we find out if this paper wasn't peer reviewed?
Your evidence, your burden of proof. You are the one who has relied upon the "fact" that your paper was peer-reviewed as some sort of metric of its scientific validity. It is your responsibility to discover whether this paper was reviewed and, if so, the nature of that review. You are simply assuming it was somehow guaranteed to be correct.
Is this not so?
"Highest-rated" can mean many things. You are trying to inflate the credibility of this paper by lauding the venue in which it was published. That's indirect and disingenuous. I'm evaluating the credibility of the paper based on the properties of the paper itself.
Does such a journal publish optionally reviewed papers with egregious lack of scientific basis?
JBIS explicitly accepts papers that are forward-looking (i.e., speculative) in nature on subject including interstellar flight and exobiology.
http://www.bis-spaceflight.com/sites.../page/186/l/en
It is an appropriate venue in which to publish a speculative article on the probability of alien visitation. That doesn't make it "physics."
Theoretically, at only 10% the speed of light it is feasible to reach the nearest stars in 40-50yrs with plasuible technology, no?
Irrelevant. Your authors accept that interstellar distance is a problem. They simply go on to speculate that aliens would have solved that problem -- somehow. Their line of reasoning is based on the same UFO-enthusiast hogwash: "We can't limit the capability of aliens, therefore we can't say they can't have solved it."
I don't think assuming sufficiently advanced tech being "magic" is a serious science foul.
It most certainly is when your findings center around attempting to determine the likelihood of alien visitation. Simply assuming that magic technology exists, so that you can inflate your estimate of what would be possible with it, is very wrong.