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Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2020 2:51 pm
by FlammableFlower
The one was a paper entitled "Organic Chemistry, Where now?"

So... someone decided to write a paper entitled "Organic Chemistry, Where now? is thirty years old. A reflection"

It was published in Angewandte Chemie (int ed) which is up there amongst the big hitters of where you want to get published. Not quite Nature or Science, but certainly in the next tier.

It was removed and retracted probably in less than 24 hours. How the hell it got through review I don't know. It's one long opinion piece and that opinion is misogynistic, bigoted and must have one hell of a chip on their shoulder.

It's now been replaced with this message.

Sadly it's no longer there to read, but there is a wonderful takedown/riposte here.

It's shocking that in this day and age you have someone yearning for the time when senior academics were to be the Master and everyone below them were subservient and grateful for what crumbs of knowledge they would drop; that they would pick an anointed one to "train" and if you were a member of an under-represented group (e.g. female or non-white), well tough if you couldn't join the club, you obviously weren't good enough.

That someone holds such views is depressing. That others thought, even if it got taken down, that it was ok to publish in an uncritical fashion makes me bl..dy angry. I suspect that's it for the author's career (although apparently one of my colleagues knows some background to him and wasn't surprised at the tone of his paper so he may survive, but I can't imagine too many people wanting to work for him now).

ETA: https://retractionwatch.com/2020/06/05/ ... ore-119631

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2020 6:59 am
by Woodchopper
Editors have an incentive to publish highly controversial articles because their impact factor improves as everyone else writes articles which state that they are wrong. Its academic click bait.

But the editor can cross a line into territory where the journal gets serious reputational damage. Which seems to be what happened here.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2020 7:21 am
by Woodchopper
FlammableFlower wrote:
Sun Jun 07, 2020 2:51 pm
I suspect that's it for the author's career (although apparently one of my colleagues knows some background to him and wasn't surprised at the tone of his paper so he may survive, but I can't imagine too many people wanting to work for him now).

ETA: https://retractionwatch.com/2020/06/05/ ... ore-119631
On the author, according to the link from retractionwatch he was born in 1949. If he is soon to go emeritus he may not care about who will work with him in the future.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2020 7:34 am
by FlammableFlower
Well they certainly overstepped the mark here.

However, having now seen a pdf of the original paper, they should never have even considered it. The author has form and is one of those people who gets labelled a "contrarian" when actually they're just thoroughly unpleasant and have managed to get into a position where it's very hard to get rid of them.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2020 10:47 am
by JQH
Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Jun 08, 2020 7:21 am
FlammableFlower wrote:
Sun Jun 07, 2020 2:51 pm
I suspect that's it for the author's career (although apparently one of my colleagues knows some background to him and wasn't surprised at the tone of his paper so he may survive, but I can't imagine too many people wanting to work for him now).

ETA: https://retractionwatch.com/2020/06/05/ ... ore-119631
On the author, according to the link from retractionwatch he was born in 1949. If he is soon to go emeritus he may not care about who will work with him in the future.
At that age it might be best if his employer said "Here's your pension, now f.ck off." Possibly translated into HRspeak.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2020 12:16 pm
by tom p
Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Jun 08, 2020 7:21 am
FlammableFlower wrote:
Sun Jun 07, 2020 2:51 pm
I suspect that's it for the author's career (although apparently one of my colleagues knows some background to him and wasn't surprised at the tone of his paper so he may survive, but I can't imagine too many people wanting to work for him now).

ETA: https://retractionwatch.com/2020/06/05/ ... ore-119631
On the author, according to the link from retractionwatch he was born in 1949. If he is soon to go emeritus he may not care about who will work with him in the future.
Isn't emeritus status non-automatic? By which I mean it has to be agreed & conferred? He might have screwed that pooch.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2020 1:02 pm
by dyqik
tom p wrote:
Mon Jun 08, 2020 12:16 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Jun 08, 2020 7:21 am
FlammableFlower wrote:
Sun Jun 07, 2020 2:51 pm
I suspect that's it for the author's career (although apparently one of my colleagues knows some background to him and wasn't surprised at the tone of his paper so he may survive, but I can't imagine too many people wanting to work for him now).

ETA: https://retractionwatch.com/2020/06/05/ ... ore-119631
On the author, according to the link from retractionwatch he was born in 1949. If he is soon to go emeritus he may not care about who will work with him in the future.
Isn't emeritus status non-automatic? By which I mean it has to be agreed & conferred? He might have screwed that pooch.
But he'll probably have cemented his place in the queue for lucrative* speaking engagements among the reactionary Skeptics and intellectual dark web.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2020 1:02 pm
by Woodchopper
tom p wrote:
Mon Jun 08, 2020 12:16 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Jun 08, 2020 7:21 am
FlammableFlower wrote:
Sun Jun 07, 2020 2:51 pm
I suspect that's it for the author's career (although apparently one of my colleagues knows some background to him and wasn't surprised at the tone of his paper so he may survive, but I can't imagine too many people wanting to work for him now).

ETA: https://retractionwatch.com/2020/06/05/ ... ore-119631
On the author, according to the link from retractionwatch he was born in 1949. If he is soon to go emeritus he may not care about who will work with him in the future.
Isn't emeritus status non-automatic? By which I mean it has to be agreed & conferred? He might have screwed that pooch.
I don't know whether it is or not.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2020 1:34 pm
by FlammableFlower
It very much depends on the institution. It's not guaranteed, but is generally the case for profs.

Where I am, one of the profs, as he came up to retirement had a monumental tizzy over requests/demands* from the central admin to see various bits of paperwork relating to pensions and emeritus applications and really threw his toys out of the pram. He did not get an emeritus position. Just a couple of months ago, another prof did.

*(depending on your point of view)

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2020 1:06 pm
by FlammableFlower
Well that escalated:
Hopefully this will be something that gains momentum and helps change the environment.

It's long been a problem in Organic Chemistry, that there's woeful under-representation of women and other groups. I thought this was more of a historic hang-over to when there was a hell of a lot of ego, and almost machismo, in the subject area; and also that it was more of an issue in the US* and Oxbridge - the having to work ridiculously long hours to get results for when the 'boss' expected to see them. Although, most of the UK examples** I'd heard of are from over 10-15 years ago and longer - hence I thought it was more of something that was only getting very slowly redressed. However, on reflection I think it permeates deeper - I'm sure Hudlicky isn't the only person who thinks and acts as he does.

*I know people who took post-doc positions in the States relating an expected number of (successful) reactions that you were supposed to achieve per month (generally 1 per day, so if things didn't work you had to really slave to get the outputs). One told me the story of a PhD student who was dismissed because the boss discovered he'd left flasks of solvent stirring to try and hide his lack of work.

**One academic so terrified his group, one of them hid in a cupboard in the lab to avoid him. Unsuccessfully as it turned out.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2020 5:47 pm
by dyqik
FlammableFlower wrote:
Tue Jun 09, 2020 1:06 pm
Well that escalated:
Hopefully this will be something that gains momentum and helps change the environment.

It's long been a problem in Organic Chemistry, that there's woeful under-representation of women and other groups. I thought this was more of a historic hang-over to when there was a hell of a lot of ego, and almost machismo, in the subject area; and also that it was more of an issue in the US* and Oxbridge - the having to work ridiculously long hours to get results for when the 'boss' expected to see them. Although, most of the UK examples** I'd heard of are from over 10-15 years ago and longer - hence I thought it was more of something that was only getting very slowly redressed. However, on reflection I think it permeates deeper - I'm sure Hudlicky isn't the only person who thinks and acts as he does.

*I know people who took post-doc positions in the States relating an expected number of (successful) reactions that you were supposed to achieve per month (generally 1 per day, so if things didn't work you had to really slave to get the outputs). One told me the story of a PhD student who was dismissed because the boss discovered he'd left flasks of solvent stirring to try and hide his lack of work.

**One academic so terrified his group, one of them hid in a cupboard in the lab to avoid him. Unsuccessfully as it turned out.
This is still absolutely f.cked generally in the US. To the point that last year I heard a speaker invited to speak at a diversity and inclusion event on how to be a good mentor/advisor say that he tells his grad students that they are expected to spend 60 hours a week in the lab.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2020 8:50 pm
by Woodchopper
The questions about how it got through peer review seem a bit odd. All that needs happen is that the editor in question selected reviewers who shared the opinions of the author. That would mean that publication was a deliberate decision rather than an oversight.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2020 9:57 pm
by dyqik
Woodchopper wrote:
Tue Jun 09, 2020 8:50 pm
The questions about how it got through peer review seem a bit odd. All that needs happen is that the editor in question selected reviewers who shared the opinions of the author. That would mean that publication was a deliberate decision rather than an oversight.
It doesn't sound like the kind of paper that would go through the standard submission peer review process - it's not exactly a chemistry paper, after all, but more of a commentary piece or "meta" paper. Commentary pieces like this are usually invited or go through a different editorial process.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2020 12:42 pm
by Woodchopper
Yes, that's plausible.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2020 12:57 pm
by FlammableFlower
More than likely, dyqik.

If it was invited, who ever did the invite was really bl..dy tone deaf or negilgent (or actually shared Hudlicky's views) - turns out quite a bit of it was rehashed from his work "The Way of Synthesis" - which is where that god-awful diagram showing "positive" and "negative" influences on organic chemistry comes from (and funnily enough, Hudlicky claims that "diversity" has apparently a wholly negative impact...). Seems (although it was certainly news to me as I'd not heard of him) that he was well known for his views and those doing the inviting should definitely have known.

If it had an alternative editorial process, then they were shockingly incompetent. A third of the editorial board have resigned in protest. Anyone associated with letting this through should go/be removed too.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2020 10:58 pm
by warumich
Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Jun 08, 2020 6:59 am
Editors have an incentive to publish highly controversial articles because their impact factor improves as everyone else writes articles which state that they are wrong. Its academic click bait.

But the editor can cross a line into territory where the journal gets serious reputational damage. Which seems to be what happened here.

Sorry it's a bit off topic, but just to regale you with an anecdote and some first class name dropping, Daniel Dennet once told me that the key to becoming a famous philosopher was to publish something that is almost, but not entirely obviously daft, and then everyone else will rush to have an argument with you, driving your citations (and name recognition) up.
He was not much of a big name then yet, so that was just before he followed his own advice and joined the whole new atheism crowd; that always amused me.

Anyway, carry on

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2020 11:18 pm
by Bird on a Fire
I've been meaning to ask for some careers advice. Aim for daft, but not misogynistic. Got it.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2020 1:03 pm
by jimbob
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Jun 12, 2020 11:18 pm
I've been meaning to ask for some careers advice. Aim for daft, but not misogynistic. Got it.
I'm not sure how that works in your field though. "These data are highly suggestive that the medieval story for the goose barnacle's lifecycle has some basis in fact"?

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 8:29 am
by Grumble
jimbob wrote:
Sat Jun 13, 2020 1:03 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Jun 12, 2020 11:18 pm
I've been meaning to ask for some careers advice. Aim for daft, but not misogynistic. Got it.
I'm not sure how that works in your field though. "These data are highly suggestive that the medieval story for the goose barnacle's lifecycle has some basis in fact"?
Birds are not, in fact, descended from dinosaurs, as previously believed, but crocodiles.

The cassowary is in fact a type of sparrow.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 2:36 pm
by dyqik
Grumble wrote:
Sun Jun 14, 2020 8:29 am
jimbob wrote:
Sat Jun 13, 2020 1:03 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Jun 12, 2020 11:18 pm
I've been meaning to ask for some careers advice. Aim for daft, but not misogynistic. Got it.
I'm not sure how that works in your field though. "These data are highly suggestive that the medieval story for the goose barnacle's lifecycle has some basis in fact"?
Birds are not, in fact, descended from dinosaurs, as previously believed, but crocodiles.

The cassowary is in fact a type of sparrow.
The legend of the roc has its origins in Hayward, California.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2020 10:03 pm
by bmforre
dyqik wrote:
Mon Jun 15, 2020 2:36 pm
The legend of the roc has its origins in Hayward, California.
The Roc I associate with Aladdin?

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2020 10:04 pm
by tom p
bmforre wrote:
Wed Jun 17, 2020 10:03 pm
dyqik wrote:
Mon Jun 15, 2020 2:36 pm
The legend of the roc has its origins in Hayward, California.
The Roc I associate with Aladdin?
No, he's from WWF

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2020 11:16 pm
by dyqik
tom p wrote:
Wed Jun 17, 2020 10:04 pm
bmforre wrote:
Wed Jun 17, 2020 10:03 pm
dyqik wrote:
Mon Jun 15, 2020 2:36 pm
The legend of the roc has its origins in Hayward, California.
The Roc I associate with Aladdin?
No, he's from WWF
Hercules rather than Aladdin.

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2020 12:45 am
by bmforre
As i understand it the heftiest devouring bird lived not too far from Basementer's present home.

I believe it went for striking more than wrestling?

Re: Ah, the misogyny - shortest lasting paper ever?

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2020 9:02 am
by warumich
Well I've successfully derailed this thread!