Science
Related: About this forumFemale scientists told to get a man to help with paper.
At first, I thought this must be The Onion. But sadly, it was not.
Dr. Fiona Ingleby is a research fellow studying evolution, behaviour and environment at the University of Sussex; her co-author, Dr. Megan Head, is an evolutionary biologist postdoctoral researcher at the Australian National University. Their manuscript was about how gender differences influence the experiences that PhD students have when theyre transitioning into post-doctoral jobs. They surveyed 244 people with PhDs in biology and concluded that men had better job prospects, suggesting that gender bias might be to blame.
In a glorious demonstration of both their thesis and the general concept of irony, Ingleby tweeted that, although their manuscript was rejected, the peer reviewer did provide a detailed list of suggestions for how they could make it better. Like, maybe consider the fact that men work more? And theyre healthier? And maybe they get papers published in better journals because their papers are just better? You ever think of that?
Lots more at the link.
http://jezebel.com/female-scientists-told-to-get-a-man-to-help-them-with-t-1701245887
mike_c
(36,281 posts)This doesn't surprise me at all. Seriously-- the post review revision process is more-often-than-not one of convincing editors that the reviewers were clueless. In this case, it sounds pretty easy.
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)and from the sexist slant to the rejection, I hope that they have a case. Of course, we are not seeing the paper, so there may be reasons for the rejection....but the reasons given were inadequate.
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)"The only thing that keeps Women from slaughtering all the men is Women feel sorry for the stupid bastards"
.
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)but I like it.
However, don't believe that we feel sorry for them.
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)"The only thing that keeps Women from slaughtering most of the Men is Religion"
sharp_stick
(14,400 posts)but I've seen some really weird shit with peer review.
I had one come back for revisions and one reviewer suggested a rejection because he didn't like the shade of green I'd used for one of the graphs.
Other times you can tell that an anonymous reviewer is actually a competitor because of the review language and that can be pretty scary because if he gets your article rejected on crappy grounds you can bet he's going to come in fast and try to scoop the conclusions.
Usually it gets worked out with an appeal to the journal but this one really seems messed up. I'd be pretty pissed at the person that handed out the review assignments not catching this level of bullshit when it was returned.
At the very least I hope that reviewer gets removed from any future assignments.
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)on your paper. It would seem to me that there should be some protection from direct competitors working on your papers. But it seems to me that it would be easy to prove who the reviewer was if they were to steal your conclusions, and that would be a pretty big black eye to them.
I do know that reviewers can be assholes, but this one really took the cake.
progressoid
(49,992 posts)"After their thorough Twitter flaying, The Public Library of Science apologized and said theyre re-considering the manuscript."
Thanks Twitter.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)no matter how well educated.