An open letter to Nature editor Philip Campbell
tenureshewrote.wordpress.com
tenureshewrote.wordpress.com
He seems particularly thin-skinned, to me.
I realize he "outed" her and I see by her post that she is not handling that herself too well. In my eyes both of these people can learn a lot about professionalism.
There is some discussion of the fact that this senior editor at Nature is outing an early-career scientist, and maybe the fact that he feels free to do so is a sign of sexism ("she" might be easier to take down than a "he"). Draw your own conclusions on that one.
The "dick" wrote publicly and under in own name in his employer's journal. No one is "grassing" him, no one is retaliating, no one is drawing attention to his gender or suggesting that he is, in fact, a dick.
They are instead commenting on unprofessional and unethical behaviour he has displayed in public, without apparent oversight or forethought or consideration for the likely harm that will arise from his actions.
The article was well thought out, well written, on the mark, and not all ad hominem.
So what's the issue?
Did I err in my original comment? Yup, fact is he tweeted the out - and the ad hominem diss - and did not use his employer's publication as his platform.
That was quite wrong of me.
And really not quite relevant either.
The relevant thread is this: A senior editor with considerable power to influence if not actually establish or derail reputations and careers by a) selecting or rejecting their articles for publication, b) commenting for or against those articles, and, most importantly in this context, c) enlarging his domain beyond its rightful bounds, the work, to focus instead on the personalities and characteristics of the people behind the work, has in fact gone directly to personally directed insult and invective.
I don't give a rat's ass and neither does anyone else if a scientist is a complete dick, provided that he or she confines their being a dick to mere social dickwaddedness whilst doing good work and promoting the careers and training of their students and peers. I've met a few like that, arrogant as fuck, not really nice people, but really, really good at nurturing and developing their students. Odd mix, really.
But a journal editor being a dick and attacking people, setting his or her own agenda that has nothing to do with competence and everything to do with personal politics and one's personal view of the rightness or wrongness of social psychology, that's going over the line.
His tweet may not have been widely read, but the fact of its existence must be, because his influence over his audience and customers is significant, and if his influence is or even appears to be significantly moderated by his opinions of personality and politics and psychology, then he has NO place in his current role and everyone affected by his being in that role deserves to know it.
The dick outed the writer on his Twitter acoount.
The writer wrote pseudonymously because of their belief that frank discussion requires freedom from professional retaliation.
The outed writer then wrote not to the dick but to his employer, Phillip Campbell.
That's as much as I can do to explain why I think both parties have acted to their own discredit.
Frank discussion of scientific ideas, methods and conclusions requires a focus on those subjects, and an absolute ignorance of the personalities behind those subjects.
Where either a scientist or a party whose opinion can significantly influence a scientist's career steps over that bound and focuses on persons and politics, frank discussion of that breach may require anonymity or pseudonymity to prevent further retaliation, etc., by the influencing party or by any of their allies who may be given to the same violation of boundaries.
An influencer of some significance violated those boundaries in a public forum, though one that may not widely followed (twitter may be widely used, but individual accounts vary, of course).
A scientist wrote pseudonymously to the influencer's employer to a) ensure the employer was aware of the breach and b) to ensure that other scientists were aware of the breach, given how that influencer may affect their reputations without their knowing, since the influencer has at least once strayed across the boundary in a most public way.
Might the scientist also have written c) out of petulance? Perhaps. But that ain't relevant, because the scientist's motivation can be explained entirely and reasonably by A and B, and C is neither relevant nor necessary, because other scientists whose careers may be affected by influencer deserve to know that this person has strayed beyond their bounds, and making this known in a letter to the employer is the most effective of achieving this.
If this was two private citizens simply squabbling about movie reviews, who would care? But Henry Gee is an editor at Nature -- the Nature -- the shiniest journal of all in the science world. He's a man who influences science careers, championing the publishing of some things and not others. He's in a position to know the identities of people on both sides of the (somewhat anonymous) peer-review table.
If you're Henry Gee you can't just out pseudonymous scientists on Twitter without a reaction, just as if you're governor you can't just have a donor pay for your daughter's wedding. (Yeah I know it's a poor analogy. Pre-coffee.) There is the appearance of impropriety because you are in a position of power. No one would give two figs about Gee or this situation if he wasn't a Nature editor.