Disclaimer: This Article Was Written by a Woman With No Help From a Man
Today in science news: Men are apparently more credible than women. Or so says a peer-reviewer for a science journal.
A peer-reviewer for the scientific journal PLOS ONE rejected a manuscript authored by two women, not for flaws in its content or lapses inthe scientific process, but because it didn’t have enough input from men.
Fiona Ingleby, an evolutionary geneticist and postdoc at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, tweeted two excerpts from the review on Wednesday.
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The anonymous reviewer suggested that Ingleby and her co-author Megan Head, an evolutionary biologist at the Australian National University in Canberra, find “one or two male biologists to work with (or at least obtain internal peer review from, but better yet as active co-authors) in order to serve as a possible check against interpretations that may sometimes be drifting too far away from empirical evidence into ideologically based assumptions.’’
The reviewer’s gender is not known, but (s)he apparently believes men are immune to ideologically based assumptions.
The reviewer added: “Perhaps it is not so surprising that on average male doctoral students co-author one more paper than female doctoral students, just as, on average, male doctoral students can probably run a mile a bit faster than female doctoral students.’’
Ingleby said on Twitter that her male colleagues did, in fact, read the paper. According to the Times Higher Education, Ingleby and Head have published about 40 papers between them. This paper described gender differences in the transition from PhD to postdoc.
The Times Higher Education said the journal sent an email to the authors on March 27 to reject the paper on the grounds that “the qulaity [sic] of the manuscript is por [sic] issues on methodologies and presentation of results [sic]’’.
The authors appealed the rejection three weeks ago, and the only communication they received was a message from the journal apologizing for the delay. They decided to post the tweets because they felt the journal should take the appeal more seriously, according to ScienceInsider.
It worked. After the tweets were posted Wednesday, PLOS released a statement in the comments of an article on Retraction Watch that reads:
“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.’’
They also tweeted an apology.
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A spokesperson told Times Higher Education, “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.’’
PLOS spokesperson David Knutson told Boston.com the paper is in the peer review process now, and is being evaluated by PLOS’s internal editors.
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