In woefully ironic turn of events , the reviewer of a rejected , entirely distaff - authored holograph prove grammatical gender bias in academe recommended that the scientists add in a couple of piece to their team to make their research more scientifically rich .
“ It would probably also be good to find one or two male biologists to work with ( or at least obtain internal peer review from , but better yet as active conscientious objector - author ) , in club to serve as a potential check against rendition that may sometimes be drift too far away from empirical evidence into ideologically biased assumptions , ” the anon. reviewer wrote .
The holograph was state by aduo of distaff researcher ; evolutionary geneticist and post - doctoral student at the University of Sussex Fiona Ingleby , and evolutionary life scientist Megan Head from the Australian National University in Canberra . The newspaper publisher detailed findings on the scientists ’ testing of grammatical gender differences in the transition from PhD to postdoc in the field of view of life sciences , which imply interpreting the event of a survey of 244 individuals holding a PhD in biology .
Rather than grammatical gender preconception , the reviewer propose an alternate interpretation : “ It could perhaps be the case that 99 % of distaff scientists make a decisiveness in mid - life that spend more time with their children is more important to them than doing everything conceivable to endeavor to get one of the rare view at the utter pinnacle of their field of operation . ”
The reviewer , whose grammatical gender is unidentified , extend on to add that the remainder could be attributable to conflict in physiology and stamina between men and women which could explain why men , on average , work 15 minute of arc longer each week .
“ Perhaps it is not so surprising that on medium manful doctoral students co - author one more paper than distaff doctorial students , just as , on average , male doctorial students can probably run a mile a bit quicker than female doctoral educatee , ” the reviewer wrote .
Not surprisingly , the authors did not take kindly to the reviewer ’s flagrantly sexist opinion and invoke the rejection . But after receiving nothing but a generic e - mail apologize for the delay in the process , the dyad resolve to vocalize their thoughts on Twitter . Of course , a warranted sh*t violent storm rapidly ensue , evoking a public apology from the journal , which the website Retraction Watch divulge as one of the members of the Public Library of Science ( PLOS ) mathematical group of publications .
“ PLOS regrets the shade , feeling and subject of this particular critique , ” a spokesperson for the journal said in a affirmation . “ We take equal follow-up severely and are diligently and efficiently wait into this thing . The solicitation is in process . ”
[ ViaScienceInsiderandTimes Higher Education ]
