Rules

Letter

It's blowing up on twitter right now, but I was wondering if any other scientist brds had seen it. Apparently the author is an undergrad studying cartography. I'm pretty disappointed that Nature published this crap.

EDIT: Sorry I didn't copy it originally! I didn't expect anyone besides academic scientists to be interested in it. For those that don't know Nature is like the scientific journal. Here's the text:

Research: Publish on the basis of quality, not gender

Lukas Koube

The publication of research papers should be based on quality and merit, so the gender balance of authors is not relevant in the same way as it might be for commissioned writers (see Nature 504, 188; 2013). Neither is the disproportionate number of male reviewers evidence of gender bias.

Having young children may prevent a scientist from spending as much time publishing, applying for grants and advancing their career as some of their colleagues. Because it is usually women who stay at home with their children, journals end up with more male authors on research articles. The effect is exacerbated in fast-moving fields, in which taking even a year out threatens to leave a researcher far behind.

This means that there are likely to be more men in the pool of potential referees.

I feel like 1000% sure this guy is on reddit. I mean where else do male undergraduate art majors who feel the need to tell published female PhDs about why it is they're not publishing more in big name journals hang out?

But mostly WTF Nature? Why did you give a platform to this misogynist? I guess the one thing this kid did show me, is apparently I'm not writing enough letters to the editor because it's crazy easy to get published in Nature if it's a misogynistic op-ed.