One of the issues with scientific peer review is that scientists are people. And people can be dicks. www.nature.com/articles/d41... I will never forget the review I got on a paper, I showed it to my aunt, and she cried because it was so personal and mean. It was accept with minor revisions. - ThreadSky

beebrookshire.bsky.social • 150 days ago

One of the issues with scientific peer review is that scientists are people. And people can be dicks.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02943-z

I will never forget the review I got on a paper, I showed it to my aunt, and she cried because it was so personal and mean.

It was accept with minor revisions.

Comments

wallyplus.bsky.social•149 days ago

My annual review stated “no one has the breadth and depth of experience as you do…”, then they fired me.

austinflowers.bsky.social•149 days ago

Don’t let Avi Loeb hear

rednecklefty.bsky.social•150 days ago

What correlation between the meanness of the review and the prominence of the reviewer?

ravva.bsky.social•150 days ago

Just a dumbass pipefitter, my ? is what's the correlation w/ the mean spirited reviewer & their childhood trauma of being picked on for being nerds?

Adults are just tall children & there's no doubt part of this culture within their community is part gate keeping & part of the bullying/victim cycle

hiphopoptamus.bsky.social•149 days ago

Peer review is so god damn harsh. So is defending your dissertation.

witheelabs.bsky.social•150 days ago

I will never be able to understand why, when asked to review a manuscript, so many people decide that their task isn’t “use my relevant expertise to make sure that this research checks out” but is instead “DESTROY ANYONE WITH THE AUDACITY TO THINK THAT THEY CAN BE IN MY FIELD WITHOUT MY PERMISSION”

ccfears.bsky.social•150 days ago

It's so unnecessary. On the journals I run we just don't send those reviews to the authors, or if there's useful stuff in there ask for the personal comments to be removed. I think some people think they're a newspaper restaurant reviewer producing clickbait or something

masslessparticle.bsky.social•148 days ago

During my husband’s comprehensive exams, one of the committee member’s comment directly after was just “I’m so disappointed” while shaking her head. He had passed without revision.

Academia is truly terrible

barbedelman.bsky.social•149 days ago

holy shit! til the peer review process is roughly analogous to a reddit forum.

samokorosec.bsky.social•149 days ago

Are those reviews availavle to the public?

If not, I would make them. Just to see how courageous these people are then.

nurseferatu.bsky.social•149 days ago

I think the strategy of successful people showing early poor reviews could be counter-productive. I would be VERY interested to see people who left STEM due to this kind of denigration and harassment. These aren’t one-offs, they are proof of a culture that eats its young.

aknupsky.bsky.social•150 days ago

I got one so demoralizing, it sat in my inbox for a decade and I never went back to the article.

coigue.bsky.social•150 days ago

Same. Never published it

coigue.bsky.social•150 days ago

Yup.

davebspain.bsky.social•148 days ago

Why is it that academia can be so toxic, it's unacceptable.

santam.bsky.social•150 days ago

I always believe it is important to peer review protocols not results. Once results are there peer review is an exercise in gatekeeping and does not seek improvement

remigau.bsky.social•148 days ago

> Peer review, which has for centuries been the standard tool to determine an academic paper’s suitability for publication,

Centuries???!!! They meant decades, right?

anatiasia.bsky.social•150 days ago

most of them are influenced

whtabtpineapple.bsky.social•150 days ago

WOW. I am so sorry!

beebrookshire.bsky.social•150 days ago

Hah it was fine. It's published!

marbiek.bsky.social•150 days ago

"fine" doing some heavy lifting there!

beebrookshire.bsky.social•150 days ago

omg THANKS I learned it in academia. 😂

mattboyd.bsky.social•149 days ago

I had no idea how bad it could get until an astrobiologist friend, English mother tongue and polyglot of seven languages in total, showed me the referee’s comment: “This paper requires proof-reading by an anglophone.”

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