A prominent astronomer at the University of Texas in Austin has withdrawn a preprint and a published paper after critics accused him of perpetuating inequality in the field, saying he is more sorry “than words can say” about the matter and that he is taking a hiatus from his work to allow the controversy to subside. He is also putting publication of a book he wrote on the subject on hold.
At the heart of the controversy was an article by John Kormendy, a specialist in black holes, titled “Metrics of research impact in astronomy: Predicting later impact from metrics measured 10-15 years after the PhD.”
Kormendy published the work last week as a preprint on arXiv before it appeared in PNAS but after he’d received word from the journal that it had been accepted.
According to a summary of the article:
Astronomers are trained to do scientific research with rigor and precision, using well-known, agreed-upon techniques that yield results with quantitative measures of uncertainty. In contrast, decisions on hiring and career advancement, although vitally important, are made using qualitative indicators and uncertain personal opinion. As scientists, we should aim to do better. This paper develops machinery to make quantitative predictions of future scientific impact from metrics measured immediately after the ramp-up period that follows the PhD. The aim is to resolve some of the uncertainty in using metrics for one aspect only of career decisions – judging scientific impact. Of course, those decisions should be made more holistically, taking into account additional factors that this paper does not measure.
To critics — many of whom took to Twitter to attack the piece — all that boiled down to what they felt was an argument that Kormendy had written a permission slip for suppressing the advance of equity in astronomy while protecting the status of “experienced” astronomers (read: old white dudes).
Viviana Acquaviva, an astrophysicist at CUNY in New York City, tweeted in a long thread:
The controversy also caught the eye of the journalist Matthew Yglesias — a frequent critic of what he considers excessive political correctness:
In his mea culpa, which Yglesias linked to, Kormendy stated that he will be retracting both the PNAS paper and the preprint, and that the 2020 book he’d written on related themes will be at least temporarily shelved.
In an email to Retraction Watch, Kormendy noted that the PNAS article had received three favorable reviews:
They were very supportive, extremely supportive (saying that “This is an extremely interesting and well-written data paper that should be read by all astronomers.”) and supportive enough (“I still believe there is too much of a jump from the earlier to the later material. However, I understand the author’s perceived constraints and don’t want to inhibit publication of what should be a stimulating paper on an important subject”). I took the referee comments into account and resubmitted the paper. It was accepted for publication …
Kormendy said he posted the paper to arXiv after PNAS accepted the article but before the journal’s embargo lifted. And that mistake, he added, was fortuitous:
On the other hand, it is probably a good thing that I put the paper on arXiv before publication, because this allowed me to withdraw the paper and (I hope) prevent further controversy in the context of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Better that I should suffer controversy than the NAS.
Kormendy also said he expected that some readers might not welcome his article or the book, which was published by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific:
I was prepared for some controversy — the subject is extremely “emotionally loaded”. I expected and hoped that it would stimulate effective discussion. But several of the 22 “LR voters” [Landau-Richter] that provide the book’s (and PNAS paper’s) calibration of the interpretation of metrics now prefer to distance themselves from this work. Under the circumstances, Joe [Jensen of the ASP] and I have agreed that we should put any further distribution or sales of the book “on hold”. The plan is to let the toxic twitter storm run its course, to wait perhaps a few months to let everybody calm down, and then to ask the LR voters again whether they “want off”. If even one voter “wants off”, then I do not see how I can ethically revive publication of the book. Some voters argue otherwise, and many people have emailed me in support of the book and the PNAS paper. But in the present toxic atmosphere, I see no viable course except to apologize for the pain that this work has caused and wait to see how the sociology develops.
The book required 5 years of intense, essentially full-time work. I believe in it. But for now, all advice to me has been that it is dangerous and unwarranted even to defend the work. I therefore am unable to comment further on events. I am sorry — more than words can say.
With the PNAS paper withdrawn, with the book on hold and no longer available, and with my sincere apology posted, I now plan to disengage from astronomy for at least 3-4 months. I need to do this for reasons of health. I do not know whether any good can be salvaged from the situation in the longer run.
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Much of the criticism I read was around the (deeply flawed) methodology, not the implications per se.
It’s interesting that some of the 22 participants named in Table 1 have now distanced themselves from the work. I wonder if they consented to being fully identified in the paper? The PNAS guidelines for authors includes these requirements for Human and Animal Participants and Clinical Trials:
“Studies must have been approved by the author’s institutional review board. Authors must include
in the methods section a brief statement identifying the institutional and/or licensing committee approving the experiments. For all experiments involving human participants, authors must also include a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from all participants, or provide a statement why this was not necessary. All experiments must have been conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. ” https://blog.pnas.org/iforc.pdf (p. 118)
There’s no statement in the paper indicating either IRB approval or consent from participants in Table 1.
Well seems Astronomy with that high levels of intimidation culture isn’t going anywhere in Western world.
M.Iglesias helped start this miasma, but seems when he got French Revolution vibes that his head could end up in the guillotine backpedalled…
Ironic that an expert on black holes now wishes he could throw his paper into a black hole.
Perhaps this privileged white male expert in black holes should consider working with others who might actually have some expertise on the topic in question here [related to the paper or the book]? There are many excellent experts in the field of diversity & inclusion. Just think, he would be less likely to have to disappear into a black hole ‘to allow the controversy to subside’. The sad part of this is that his career will remain unaffected by this – he still has his job once the controversy dies down. But, how many younger scientists, who have been discriminated against, are no longer in their chosen fields because their skin color, their gender, & goodness knows what else is an implicit bias for these types of people? We don’t need some other metric – no magic number is going to do it for us. What we do need is people stepping up to the plate when minority candidates for positions are scrutinized unfairly & inappropriately by these dinosaurs. There are many senior scientists of all persuasions who understand these biases. But now they need to speak up. They need to get used to the idea of feeling uncomfortable. That is the nature of the real diversity & inclusion beast… It’s nice to hold hands & sing Kumbaya, but this is only a very tiny part of this puzzle.
> The sad part of this is that his career will remain unaffected
> by this – he still has his job once the controversy dies down.
>
From the UT Austin web page, Kormendy is emeritus, so he does not have a job to lose (and presumably also no longer seats on hiring committees).
“many younger scientists, who have been discriminated against, are no longer in their chosen fields because their skin color, their gender,”
These comments are usually about cases that are made up. What are the names of these supposed discriminated-against persons? Where is the documentation? This kind of vague nonsense is pushed out to defend the cancellation of more capable persons. Put up or shut up, Aina Puce.
So what I would like to know is that outside the usual lunatic Twitter outrage mob reaction was there anything actually wrong with the data and conclusions that were contained in this now disappeared journal article and book? Or is it just that it annoyed enough social justice warriors like Aina Puce (see above) that he thought it best to retract now and save himself the harassment from the twitter social justice outrage mob. (Good luck with that, you’re now on the social justice twitter outrage mob’s radar and won’t ever see the end of it. They’ll be going through your work with a fine tooth comb looking for any reason to demand your resignation/termination from your professorship and teaching position. Guaranteed. )
Science by social outrage. I guess science is well and truly dead.
The only way to stop the social-justice mob destruction of science is to ignore the barbarians who talk about “equity” and “diversity” and just publish the paper. There is a relationship between early work and later work; any scientist knows this. Ignoring it, putting your fingers in your ears and saying “na-na-na-na” does not make it go away.
Here is the paper:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10qxkHSO_7vkgX-F2ycO_8iHpOtnNaM8f/view
It’s a disaster, for reasons cogently explained here:
https://twitter.com/AstroVivi/status/1453753641509195781
Nah, sorry. If anyone has such a problem with the paper they could actually author a response outlining the problems with the paper and have it published in the appropriate journal. I don’t play the twitter outrage mob game. Nor do I think Twitter is really an appropriate place for such things.
But Thanks anyway.
Science by social media outrage. Science is truly dead.
It’s obviously true that astronomers would be rightfully incensed if a sociologist tried to develop a theory of astronomy. For an astronomer to attempt sociology of science with no background is equally foolish. So why put a stupid paper in the literature when it will merely harm the reputation of the author and the journal?
It’s not “obviously true” that anyone should be incensed by a researcher’s off-specialty investigations, any more than appropriate responses to Kormendy’s writing should necessarily include being horrified, sad, insulted, excluded or scared (all of these being elements of @AstroVivi’s tweet-screed). If science is to avoid the death that stewart laments, we’ll have to give up our emo thumb-typed dopamine binging in favor of thoughtful, reasoned and (if at all possible) dispassionate discourse. Good luck with that.
No, it isn’t obviously true. Yes, it probably would raise some eyebrows if a sociologist with no background in astronomy wrote an astronomy paper or an astronomer with no background in sociology wrote a sociology paper. But last time I consulted “Da Rulz!” of science I didn’t see anything that would prevent either from doing so. So what is your point, exactly?
And you’d have to ask PNAS why they peer reviewed such a “stupid paper” and evidently accepted it for publication in a future journal issue as I’m not privy to the process they use. They certainly didn’t think it would harm their reputation or the reputation of the author when they accepted it for publication. So again, what is your point, exactly?
Science conduced by the mob. Science is truly dead.
Pretty clear that the paper was accepted because the Prof is emeritus, regardless of its merit. The tweet thread was accurate and shows that it has no merit. This is a win for science.
Again, remember the rules for PNAS submissions – submissions by members of the NAS undergo less rigorous review (although this is gradually tightening up).
Sorry, attributed “science is truly dead” to stewart when it was William Kemmler. Would retract [moderator!] and re-submit if possible. 🙂