Warning. I am crankier than usual right now. I’m still in a fury about serial domestic violence perpetrator Floyd Mayweather being protected by the entire city of Las Vegas and getting paid a gazillion dollars to beat someone up (at least that guy signed on for it) as well as about the general state of our planet, but I have 20 minutes before I have to meet my mom to see The Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder (FITTING); so I thought I’d tackle this vile wee bit o’ sexism covered by our pals at Retraction Watch and tipped to us by Sorrywatch reader/technical writer/martial arts badass/music writer Lisa Hirsch.
This is Snarly today.
Fiona Ingleby and Megan Head, postdocs in evolutionary genetics at the University of Sussex and the Australian National University, respectively, co-wrote an article on gender differences. They looked at data about newly minted PhDs and the correlations between their publication rates and the amount of time it took to find postdoc jobs…and found that (SHOCKER) men had a significantly easier time. The two submitted their paper to a scientific journal published by PLOS (Public Library of Science).
All female scientists look exactly like this at all times.
Ingleby tweeted about what happened next. Read the whole pathetic saga over at RetractionWatch…but here are the highlights.
1. One of the paper’s peer reviewers suggested that the scientists find a couple of dude biologists “to serve as a possible check against interpretations that may sometimes be drifting too far away from empirical evidence into ideologically based assumptions.” (Ingleby and Head were looking at survey data. Pure numbers. In general I’m a believer in “show me the results you want and I’ll design a study to find them,” but in this case, the two didn’t design a study: They merely reported numbers and results from widely available data.) The reviewer also suggested they get a guy’s name on the paper to improve it.
Professor Jerry Hathaway at Pacific Tech might deign to read the little ladies’ little paper.
2. The reviewer helpfully pointed out that male doctoral students publish in better journals and work longer hours because of their “marginally better health and stamina.”Like Captain America, post-serum. Also, they can “probably run a mile race faster than female doctoral students.” IT’S JUST SCIENCE.
3. On April 29, after Ingleby’s tweets and Retraction Watch’s coverage, David Knutson, PR man of PLOS, left a comment at Retraction Watch:
PLOS regrets the tone, spirit and content of this particular review. We take peer review seriously and are diligently and expeditiously looking into this matter. The appeal is in process. PLOS allows Academic Editors autonomy in how they handle manuscripts, but we always follow up if concerns are raised at any stage of the process. Our appeals policy also means that any complaints of the review process can be fully addressed and the author given opportunity to have their paper re-reviewed.
Not an apology. Twitter observations included:
PLOS also tweeted at Ingleby:
Mmm, nope. As we have discussed many times on this site, “regret” is not “apology.” Regret is about the speaker’s feelings; apology is about the listener’s feelings.
4. The next day The Times Higher Education outed the journal as PLOS ONE, and having gotten hold of the review itself, quoted it thusly: “the qulaity [sic] of the manuscript is por [sic] issues on methodologies and presentation of resulst [sic].” (There’s SO MUCH MORE where that came from, including the suggestion that ladies just don’t TRY as hard as the menfolk, so do head to THE if you have a Xanax on hand, but we’re in this for the apology, so let’s move on.)
5. Knutson followed up again in another comment to Retraction Watch:
There has been a lot of talk about peer review in general, with some questions raised about single-blind review on Retraction Watch and other venues. We have been asked why PLOS ONE uses a single-blind system and whether we’ll consider other peer review systems in the future.
PLOS ONE currently use single-blind review, and feels that cases such as this highlight the flaws in such a system. We believe the answer lies not in making the process even more closed, such as by using double-blind review, but by opening it up and making it more transparent. We are currently exploring a system on PLOS ONE, with an opt-out feature, whereby reviewers’ identities are made available to authors, and reviews posted alongside papers.
In other words, having two reviewers (which one of the paper’s co-authors tweeted was a good idea in general) is NOT A GOOD IDEA! It’s even more covert! (Wait, what?) But you can have the chance to know who dinged you, maybe? I’m unclear on WHO gets the opt-out feature — the reviewer or the author, but I am just a girl of very little brain.
6. AND FINALLY (we think) the editorial director of PLOS ONE weighed in on PLOS’s blog. According to Damian Pattinson, the manuscript is now being re-reviewed by a different editor, and “[w]e have also asked the Academic Editor who handled the manuscript to step down from the Editorial Board and we have removed the referee from our reviewer database.”
Damian Pattinson
AND HERE IS THE APOLOGY! Thank you for reading along this far!
I want to sincerely apologize for the distress the report caused the authors, and to make clear that we completely oppose the sentiments it expressed. We are reviewing our processes to ensure that future authors are given a fair and unprejudiced review. As part of this, we are working on new features to make the review process more open and transparent, since evidence suggests that review is more constructive and civil when the reviewers’ identities are known to the authors (Walsh et al., 2000). This work has been ongoing for some months at PLOS ONE, and we will be announcing more details on these offerings soon.
Adequate. An excellent apology would not apologize for the “distress the report caused the authors.” It would apologize for the actions of PLOS ONE. And it would apologize to all humans, not just Ingleby and Head. Female scientist humans are only one segment of the populace hurt by sexism and bias. SCIENCE is also hurt by sexism and bias.
This is who you apologize to, not to “those offended.”
The best apologies own the wrongdoing, name and describe with precision what the wrongful action was, acknowledge the damage done, discuss the “why” and explain the steps taken to be sure it won’t happen again. In many cases, reparations are also called for. PLOS ONE gets about a B-/C+ here.
A note: The use of “civil” twice in Pattinson’s post (read the whole thing here) is interesting. Ingleby and Head were utterly civil. Ingleby only turned to Twitter after not hearing from PLOS ONE for weeks after she and her co-writer appealed the decision. At no point was there name-calling. The reviewer was also civil. (Blithely sexist, offensive, clueless, biased and in possession of few English spelling or grammar gifts, but civil!) Many Twitter comments, however, were snarky and mocking. I suspect Pattinson’s repeated use of “civil” was an indication of how he felt about PLOS ONE being lambasted in social media. Well, cry me a river — a river like the tears of hysterical women and the plague of gushing menstrual blood upon which their academic work apparently flows.
I would comment, but there are no person’s of the opposite sex available here, at the moment, to balance any statement I might make.
On point 5: “single-blind review” doesn’t mean one reviewer, it means the reviewer knows the authors’ names but the authors don’t know who the reviewer is. Double-blind review, where the reviewer does not know the authors’ names either, is the norm for major scientific journals and it definitely would have prevented this. (I mean, the jerk reviewer could question the sex of the authors but he wouldn’t know.) I’ve always found single-blind review to be a little baffling anyway, as most of these fields are small worlds and the reviewer often has some history with at least one of the authors. I’m guessing the opt-out feature refers to the reviewer, who could decide whether to reveal himself or herself to the authors.
Thanks for the explanation, Renee!
Everything wrong in the disgusting thing called “Science” today is illustrated by this run of pure feminist BS political correctness.
Thank you for your dissenting comment. SorryWatch disagrees with a few of your remarks.
Science is not disgusting nor is it a thing. It’s a great set of enterprises being pursued by imperfect humans, but tending toward progress. The flaws it does have are not all illustrated by this event.
It is not an example of “pure feminist BS political correctness.” On the contrary, the unnamed reviewer exhibits pure anti-feminist prejudice of an old-fashioned but still extant variety.
Note that the paper was a data round-up. So unless numbers are feminists, the purity of any feminism is unclear.
In short, everything you say is a lie except “of” and “the.” So Mary McCarthy would say Lillian Hellman still has you beaten.
“Note that the paper was a data round-up. So unless numbers are feminists, the purity of any feminism is unclear. ”
That’s the most inept thing you could have said.
Thank you.
“In short, everything you say is a lie ”
Oh no, this is even MORE inept.
You confirm you have ZERO idea what science is about.
You are too stupid to use the Internet.
Go. Away. Moron.
“Note that the paper was a data round-up.”
You are essentially explaining that the data was sufficient and that the FEMALE authors’ work had ZERO added value.
Thank you for your LACK of consideration of these FEMALES’ work.
No, that’s not what that means. Synthesis and analysis of data add value.
So you admit your “Note that the paper was a data round-up.” remark was wrong, just as all your other remarks.
Thank you.
No.
The paper was a “data round-up”, or not.
You can’t have it both ways.
No. Round up some data, then analyze it.
The paper was a “data round-up”, or a “data round-up + analysis”. You can’t have it both ways.
“The paper was a “data round-up”, or a “data round-up + analysis”. You can’t have it both ways.”
Silly. It doesn’t say “the paper was a data round-up and nothing but a data round-up.”
The world is full of middle roads.
So the paper was NOT a “data round-up”.
You lose.
Go away.
Wrong again.
Hello???
What was in the paper, doofus?