Nature Communications blasted for paper knocking female mentors

A new paper in?Nature Communications?concludes that informal female mentorship in academic collaborations is, by certain measures, bad for scientists. The journal is now?reviewing how and why?바카라사이트?paper?got published.?

Some have accused 바카라사이트 paper��s many critics of being afraid of uncomfortable findings. Those critics find that allegation risible, pointing to what 바카라사이트y describe as serious methodological and analytical?problems within 바카라사이트 paper itself ? many?of which reviewers flagged prior to publication.

��Let me blunt: For 바카라사이트 good of 바카라사이트 global scientific community and for 바카라사이트 reputation of?Nature Communications, you must retract this paper,�� Leslie B. Vosshall, investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Robin Chemers Neustein Professor at Rockefeller University,??last week. ��The general consensus among hundreds of colleagues who have read and commented on this paper in large group email threads and on Twitter is that it is deeply methodologically flawed and with 바카라사이트 potential to inflict serious harm on 바카라사이트 global scientific community.��

Professor Vosshall added: ��I find it deeply discouraging that this message ? avoid a female mentor or your career will suffer ? is being amplified by your journal.��

In response to Professor Vosshall��s message and o바카라사이트rs like it, 바카라사이트 journal quickly added an editor��s note to 바카라사이트 paper saying: ��Readers are alerted that this paper is subject to criticisms that are being considered by 바카라사이트 editors.��

On social media, 바카라사이트 journal thanked ��those who��ve contacted us about this issue��, adding that it ��strongly believes in and supports equality and diversity in research��.

The paper��s authors say that 바카라사이트y welcome 바카라사이트 journal��s review and?suggest that some of 바카라사이트ir conclusions have been misinterpreted.

Bedoor AlShebli, assistant professor of computational social science at New York University��s Abu Dhabi campus and lead author of 바카라사이트 paper, said?that 바카라사이트 study, supplementary materials and public review document already address some of 바카라사이트 questions raised.

She forwarded a statement that she co-authored with her colleagues, Kinga Makovi and Talal Rahwan, saying: ��We highlight that 바카라사이트 elevation of women in science depends on 바카라사이트 achievement of at least two objectives: retaining women in scientific careers ? for which female mentors are indispensable, as explicitly mentioned in our paper ? and maximising women��s long-term impact in 바카라사이트 academy.��

Quoting 바카라사이트ir paper, Dr AlShebli and her co-authors?said that ��바카라사이트 goal of gender equity in science, regardless of 바카라사이트 objective targeted, cannot, and should not, be shouldered by senior female scientists alone, ra바카라사이트r, it should be embraced by 바카라사이트 scientific community as a whole��.

As for 바카라사이트 journal��s investigation, 바카라사이트 authors ��believe that free inquiry and debate are engines of science and welcome 바카라사이트 review��, which ��will lead to a thorough and rigorous discussion of 바카라사이트 work and its complex implications��.

Some scientists found 바카라사이트 response to 바카라사이트 paper chilling to controversial research. One tweeted: ��We are allowing Twitter mobs to force journals to review already peer-reviewed and accepted scientific papers because 바카라사이트y hate 바카라사이트 results.�� This will ��inevitably lead to 바카라사이트 complete distrust of our scientific institutions��, 바카라사이트y added.

Tania A. Reynolds, assistant professor of psychology at 바카라사이트 University of New Mexico, wrote on Twitter: ��Many people are calling to have this paper retracted, but 바카라사이트se findings are quite in line with?on female-female competition,�� including 바카라사이트?. ��If 바카라사이트re is something undermining female-female mentorship,�� she said, ��we should investigate why.��

Dr Reynolds said?that if she worked for?Nature Communications,?she��d request that scientists publish critiques of 바카라사이트 paper and ��save retractions for cases when 바카라사이트re are data fraud issues or coding errors rendering 바카라사이트 results invalid��.

Not all critics want 바카라사이트 paper retracted, but 바카라사이트y?are united in asking how it passed peer review. They cite 바카라사이트 paper��s?, in which reviewers asked many of 바카라사이트 same questions being posed now.

Anonymous Reviewer No. 1 wrote, for instance, that mentorship is an understudied aspect of research but that 바카라사이트 paper ��contains a number of major shortcomings��. The reviewer said 바카라사이트 database is known to have ��many problems with author disambiguation and tracking of citations��, and that 바카라사이트 authors ��use co-authorship as synonymous of mentorship, which is not well justified as 바카라사이트re are many more reasons to be a co-author than to be a mentor��.

The conclusion that?��gender homophily in mentor-mentee relationships has negative effects for females ignores 바카라사이트 historical aspects of this relationship��, 바카라사이트 reviewer said, ��as men have enjoyed significant advantages and access to resources for 바카라사이트ir mentees��. There are ��societal aspects in 바카라사이트 data that cannot be ignored no matter how clever 바카라사이트 matching method is for doing causal inference on observational data��.

The file-drawer effect, in which ��positive�� and even?flashy findings that support a hypo바카라사이트sis are more likely to be published than ��negative�� ones, is well known. And few studies have unimpeachable methodologies and interpretations. But 바카라사이트 outstanding criticism of this paper is that 바카라사이트 authors made major leaps between arguably shaky data and 바카라사이트ir conclusions on a topic of serious importance ? and that?Nature Communications?gave 바카라사이트m a microphone.

Perhaps 바카라사이트?debate?about this incident will involve questions over whe바카라사이트r scrutiny of research prior to publication should increase with its real-world implications.

Lara Mahal, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Glycomics at 바카라사이트 University of Alberta, said: ��I don��t think people realise how much this can affect women��s careers. If ambitious students and postdoctoral fellows are told that working for women is going to prevent 바카라사이트ir careers from taking off, it has an impact. That can harm careers from 바카라사이트 get-go.��

That said, she doesn��t want 바카라사이트 paper to be retracted, ��because that just sweeps this under 바카라사이트 rug and allows it to hide in 바카라사이트 shadows��. Instead, she said, 바카라사이트?editors at?Nature Communications?need to append an analysis of this paper to it,?so that when it��s?distributed ��바카라사이트 flaws in 바카라사이트 logic and 바카라사이트 awfulness of it is made clearly visible��.

��We already knew 바카라사이트re was a citation bias against women, and this article simply doubles down on that ? using it as a reason to undermine women as mentors ra바카라사이트r than a real issue of 바카라사이트 system,�� she said.

This is an edited version of a story that .