Weekend reads: An article on a controversial topic just disappears; mass resignations from a nutrition journal; the likely mistaken history of the vibrator

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This week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of happiness, an apology from a journal, and bad news for a lab with a high “level of disorganization.” Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

8 thoughts on “Weekend reads: An article on a controversial topic just disappears; mass resignations from a nutrition journal; the likely mistaken history of the vibrator”

  1. Theodore Hill’s article is very interesting. The more the academic left does this kind of thing to papers like the case for colonialism and the transgender one, the more censorship ammunition they give to the right. Someone needs to tell these people about the Streisand effect because I wouldn’t have read any of these papers without their complaints.

    1. The way the journal made Hill’s article disappear is scandalous, but on the other hand accepting it to be published in the first place is beyond strange. The article (or at least the version on arxiv) is not at all like mathematical research articles that the journal normally carries.

    2. It’s a lose-lose situation once the work has been published. Ignore valid, widespread criticisms and stand behind substandard research? Ignore one’s own rights to free speech to continue promoting research despite reputational consequences of remaining associated with it? Or do something about it and get accused of playing politics by “censorship” concern trolls? What’s one to do? Someone needs to remind them that “free speech” doesn’t entitle anyone to their desired platform. None of these incidents make a cogent argument to establish that any research is being silenced — indeed, it’s all still out there where we can read it.

  2. Regarding the Nature article about publishing peer-review reports: As research methods become increasingly specialized, there is a decreasing fraction of readers who can fully evaluate the results of any paper in their sub-field. Peer-review reports are sometimes very useful in helping readers evaluate a paper, especially limitations that the authors do not highlight.
    Also, I don’t understand the objections to publication of (anonymous) peer-review reports. To me, they seem overblown.

  3. The paper didn’t go down the “memory hole”. It was rejected by a journal, albeit in an unusual way. Maybe the journal should have handled things differently, but let’s not exaggerate it into an Orwellian dystopia. I for one don’t go crying censorship every time I get a desk rejection or bad reviews.

    1. “Published and disappeared” and “rejected” are not the same thing.

      I’ve had papers rejected too. I don’t have the expertise to evaluate whether this paper should have gotten up or not. I just wish that it had been rejected or published in a normal way.

  4. With PNAS ending its printed edition as of January 2019, one can conclude that this esteemed Journal, hypothetically, will no longer be immune from the peculiar events described under the top bullet point of the list above.

  5. Benson Farb, one of the editors of the New York Journal of Mathematics has his problems with Hill’s article

    https://www.math.uchicago.edu/~farb/statement

    “At the request of several editors, the editor-in-chief pulled the paper temporarily on 11/9/17 so that the entire editorial board could discuss these concerns. A crucial component of such a discussion are the reports by experts judging the novelty and quality of the mathematics in Hill’s paper. The editor who handled the paper was asked to share these reports with the entire board. My doubts about the paper – and the process – grew when repeated requests for the reports went unanswered. Nearly 3 months passed until the two reports were finally shared with the entire board on 2/7/18. The reports themselves were not from experts on the topic of the paper. They did not address our concerns about the substantive merit of the paper.

    After these reports were shared, the entire board discussed what do. For many of us, there was no compelling evidence that Hill’s paper was appropriate for NYJM. Further, the evidence that the paper had undergone rigorous scrutiny before being accepted was scant. In light of this, the board voted (by a 2-to-1 ratio) to rescind the paper. ”

    This is prime Retraction Watch stuff. It also echos of a number of such cases where editors have jackhorned nonsense into reputable journals.

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