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This is an embarrassing justification by QSS editor-in-chief @LudoWaltman. Yes, as a general principle, diversity in perspectives is a virtue. That does not mean it's a good idea to publish flawed empirical work pushed by a crackpot alt-right idealogue. https://direct.mit.edu/qss/article/2/1/224/99123/Understanding-gender-differences-in-science
Waltman tries to defend himself and the reviewers he chose with the argument “well, we didn’t agree with *everything* Strumia wrote…” This the same sort of weak justification the Social Text editors responded with after publishing the Sokal hoax.
Waltman’s judgment should also be questioned with his choice of peer reviewers. QSS doesn’t have double-blind peer review (but it should!). Strumia’s track record as an idealogue should have been a red flag for most evaluators.
I’ve heard complaints from QSS editorial board members that Waltman did not confer with them, which is probably good practice for an EIC considering a controversial article.
It’s also disappointing (and telling) that the peer reviewers Waltman chose refused to release their peer review reports.
In the infamous case of the gender/mentorship NatCom article (which wasn’t as bad as this QSS piece), this enabled us to see where mistakes may have happened in peer review and/or gatekeeping.
You know it’s bad when an OA journal doesn’t publish an article for 1.5 years after acceptance, and members of your editorial board – and current president of the ISSI – rip your decision-making in Science. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/decision-certain-draw-fire-journal-will-publish-heavily-criticized-paper-gender
Plus, while the authors who wrote responses should be commended for their efforts and hard work, there’s also a reasonable argument that it’s best not to legitimate bad articles with attention. https://twitter.com/kamerlinlab/status/1192909961522663424
However, since QSS legitimated and publicized the article, it’s perhaps not possible to ignore it. Even *retracted* work still gets cited.
Even with published rejoinders, alt-right bros, gender essentialists, Quillette etc will be citing the Strumia article for years. That’s an irresponsible intellectual and social contribution to science by QSS.
Ludo is a good scholar and a good guy, but his gatekeeping choices and philosophies are questionable. In a past experience reviewing for QSS, I was shocked as Ludo tried to push through a badly flawed article, and tapped a peer reviewer that I thought was topically inappropriate.
More broadly, I’m a bit troubled by the overrepresentation of editorial board members in QSS. For example, in just over a year, Mike Thelwall has already been published 14 times in QSS. (Caveat: scientometrics is a relatively small and prolific field with lots of co-authorship)
I – and others – had very high hopes for QSS. As a scholar-led non-profit OA journal that broke away from an #Elsevier imprint, this is exactly the type of journal academia needs more of.
In its short existence, QSS already has published lots of excellent articles. However, this editorial is an embarrassing misstep that compounds the damage done by publishing the Strumia piece. (Fin.)
