We’ve written quite a lot about the perks and pitfalls of the peer review system, but one thing we never really touched on was the risk that a reviewer might be … well, not to put too fine a point on it: a dope.

But Fiona Ingleby can speak to that. Ingleby, a postdoc in evolutionary genetics at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, co-wrote an article on gender differences in the transition from PhD-dom to postdoc land and submitted it to a journal for consideration. What she heard back was lamentably ironic — and grossly sexist.

According to Ingleby’s Twitter feed, one of the reviewers suggested to the two authors that they:

…find one or two male biologists to work with (or at least obtain internal peer review from, but better yet as active co-authors), in order to serve as a possible check against interpretations that may sometimes be drifting too far away from empirical evidence into ideologically based assumptions.

So these men, ideally co-authors, would help inoculate their X-chromosome heavy group against potential bias. Ahem!

Reviewer’s conclusion: we should get a man’s name on MS to improve it (male colleagues had already read it) (2/4) pic.twitter.com/fhiyzNG0R8 — Fiona Ingleby (@FionaIngleby) April 29, 2015

Digging the hole even deeper, the reviewer noted that male doctoral students produce more papers than females, and male scientists publish in better journals and work longer hours. But don’t be offended — it’s due to men’s “marginally better health and stamina.”

…and this is a bit hypocritical given the reviewer’s own ideological biases throughout the review, for example: (3/4) pic.twitter.com/aJ8aTIRdYL — Fiona Ingleby (@FionaIngleby) April 29, 2015

Ingleby and her colleague have appealed to the unnamed journal, which belongs to the PLoS family, she tells us. In the meantime, she Tweets:

Journal has been given three weeks so far to respond to our appeal. If there was ever an argument for double-blind peer review… (4/4) — Fiona Ingleby (@FionaIngleby) April 29, 2015

About that. We wondered if the sexist reviewer might have been able to hide behind a claim of gender-neutral naming. But no. Ingleby told us her co-author on the manuscript was Megan Head:

Megan and Fiona are pretty unambiguous names when it comes to guessing gender. But in fact, the reviewer acknowledged that they had looked up our websites prior to reading the MS (they said so in their review). They used the personal assessment they made from this throughout their review – not just gender, but also patronising comments throughout that suggested the reviewer considered us rather junior. Megan and I are both postdocs, but have about 20 years research experience and 40 published papers between us, so not exactly junior. Besides, it irks me that the review is so clearly influenced by this personal assessment rather than being based on the quality of the manuscript. The manuscript itself wasn’t, in my view, overly controversial, and Megan and I had it read and commented on by a number of colleagues (male and female) who agreed that the discussion was balanced and fair, so this reviewer’s reaction was quite shocking and unexpected. In a nutshell, we found that men finished their PhDs with more other-author papers than women, but no difference in number of first-author publications. Then we found that the number of publications affected how long it took PhD grads to successfully find a postdoc job – but this effect differed between men and women. It was interesting, but as it used survey data, it was difficult to gain anything conclusive behind the results – so our discussion was pretty open.

By bringing the review comments to Twitter, Ingleby definitely opened up the discussion further.

Update, 5 p.m. Eastern, 4/29/15: David Knutson, of PLOS, left this comment on our post:

PLOS regrets the tone, spirit and content of this particular review. We take peer review seriously and are diligently and expeditiously looking into this matter. The appeal is in process. PLOS allows Academic Editors autonomy in how they handle manuscripts, but we always follow up if concerns are raised at any stage of the process. Our appeals policy also means that any complaints of the review process can be fully addressed and the author given opportunity to have their paper re-reviewed.

Update, 4:45 p.m. Eastern, 4/30/15: PLOS sent us this additional statement:

There has been a lot of talk about peer review in general, with some questions raised about single-blind review on Retraction Watch and other venues. We have been asked why PLOS ONE uses a single-blind system and whether we’ll consider other peer review systems in the future. PLOS ONE currently use single-blind review, and feels that cases such as this highlight the flaws in such a system. We believe the answer lies not in making the process even more closed, such as by using double-blind review, but by opening it up and making it more transparent. We are currently exploring a system on PLOS ONE, with an opt-out feature, whereby reviewers’ identities are made available to authors, and reviews posted alongside papers.

Update, 4:15 p.m. Eastern, 5/1/15: As Science reports, PLOS ONE has asked the Academic Editor who handled the manuscript to step down, and will no longer use the reviewer in question. According to a post by PLOS ONE Editorial Director Damian Pattinson:

PLOS ONE has strict policies for how we expect peer review to be performed and we strive to ensure that the process is fair and civil. We have taken a number of steps to remedy the situation. We have formally removed the review from the record, and have sent the manuscript out to a new editor for re-review. We have also asked the Academic Editor who handled the manuscript to step down from the Editorial Board and we have removed the referee from our reviewer database.

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