A month after announcing it would be conducting a “priority” investigation into a November 17 paper that claimed women in science fare better with male rather than female mentors, Nature Communications has retracted the article.
In the article, “The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance,” the authors — a trio from New York University’s campus in Abu Dhabi — write that “While current diversity policies encourage same-gender mentorships to retain women in academia, our findings raise the possibility that opposite-gender mentorship may actually increase the impact of women who pursue a scientific career.” It drew nearly immediate criticism, for example:
On November 19, the journal added an editor’s note saying it would be looking into these criticisms, and today, the article was retracted following review by three experts. The retraction notice reads, in part:
In this Article, we analysed publication records to identify pairs of junior and senior researchers working in the same discipline, at the same institution, who are co-authors on papers with no more than 20 authors. We use co-authorship, as defined above, as a proxy of mentorship by senior researchers, with the support of a survey that was targeted at a random sample of a recent cohort of researchers. We measure the quality of mentorship using the number of citations and the connectedness of the senior investigators.
The three independent experts commented on the validity of the approaches and the soundness of the interpretation in the Article. They supported previous criticisms in relation to the use of co-authorship as a measure of mentorship. Thus, any conclusions that might be drawn on biases in citations in the context of co-authorship cannot be extended to informal academic mentorship. The experts also noted that the operationalisation of mentorship quality was not validated in the paper.
The authors, all of whom write that they agree with the retraction, continue:
Although we believe that all the key findings of the paper with regards to co-authorship between junior and senior researchers are still valid, given the issues identified by reviewers about the validation of key measures, we have concluded that the most appropriate course of action is to retract the Article.
We are an interdisciplinary team of scientists with an unwavering commitment to gender equity, and a dedication to scientific integrity. Our work was designed to understand factors that influence the scientific impact of those who advance in research careers. We feel deep regret that the publication of our research has both caused pain on an individual level and triggered such a profound response among many in the scientific community. Many women have personally been extremely influential in our own careers, and we express our steadfast solidarity with and support of the countless women who have been a driving force in scientific advancement. We hope the academic debate continues on how to achieve true equity in science–a debate that thrives on robust and vivid scientific exchange.
In an editorial accompanying the retraction, the editors argue that this was not a case of retracting a paper just because some found it distasteful, but that there were serious issues in the methods (a larger issue we took up in September in WIRED):
Simply being uncomfortable with the conclusions of a published paper, would and should not lead to retraction on this basis alone. If the research question is important, and the conclusions sound and valid, however controversial, there can be merit in sharing them with the research community so that a debate can ensue and a range of possible solutions be proposed. In this case, the conclusions turned out not to be supported, and we apologise to the research community for any unintended harm derived from the publication of this paper.
The editors also say that they “have developed additional internal guidelines, and updated information for authors on how we approach this type of paper” and that, along with Sense about Science, as part of a dedication to diversity and inclusion in research, they have “launched as a pilot a peer review programme for early career researchers, consisting of a webinar and a hands-on phase which we plan to extend next year.”
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The discussion surrounding that retraction is bizarre. The journal says that: “Simply being uncomfortable with the conclusions of a published paper, would and should not lead to retraction on this basis alone”. That makes sense when one believes in objective social facts. However this is rapidly followed by a comment of a very different nature as if the real topic here was not the data but the moral value of the possible conclusions that could have come out of a more robust methodology. The journal thus adds that: “we recognise that it is essential to ensure that such studies are considered from multiple perspectives including from groups concerned by the findings”. Why only “such studies”? And given the thousands of persons studied, who exactly are the “groups concerned” and who can speak in their name? And given they may know nothing about the methodology used can they simply say they “dislike” the results because they happen not to fit with what they think? And why the journal should apologize for hypothetical “unintended harm derived from the publication of this paper”. What kind of “harm” do they have in mind?
Finally, why do they talk about their “dedication to diversity and inclusion in research”? How is that legitimate interest in inclusion and diversity precisely related to the very technical question of the validity of that particular paper?
It is also curious that the authors can say that they believe that all their key findings are valid and then admit that their methods are not robust. And if their main results are indeed valid, why not simply publish en erratum saying they misinterpreted some data and want to modify their conclusions? And, again, why do they add something totally unrelated to the topic, that is that they have an “unwavering commitment to gender equity”.
All this suggests a confusion of levels of analysis: data showing — or not — an effect of gender on impact on the one hand, and personal convictions about proper moral concern for inclusion and diversity on the other .
This paper’s retraction has become a cause celebre in certain political circles, claiming that was politically motivated. While many may feel that it’s conclusions support and conflict with their ideological beliefs and biases, especially misogynist bigotry, the real story here is one of slap dash logic followed by poor peer review, a very common problem in sociology and related fields. When re-reviewed, the weakness of the paper’s methodology was just as many critics of the paper had expounded, i.e. applying a measure of “mentorship” was no such thing, but instead was only a measure of who else was on a paper. If one starts with an invalid measure, what is found in the data will have no value for testing the stated hypothesis. This is the type of mistake that untrained researchers would make. (It suggests that one should look to see just who “mentored” the researchers… but the paper suggests that they failed in their duty.)
But, not matter how well the re-review or the retraction notice explain the reasons for the retraction. It is clear that certain propagandists will continue to hold this episode up as “proof” of their misogynist / anti-feminist / anti-“woke” polemics.
Once again, woke academics find a paper that is at odds with their own political views, and they attack the journal, the editor, the authors, and the institution until it’s retracted. Any paper can be retracted if a thousand people critique it, especially if they’re already biased against the findings. However, this only happens to ‘heretical’ articles that challenge the woke orthodoxy. We cannot trust the consensus of the scientific community anymore, at least not on issues of race, gender, and political issues in general.
Science has become the ultimate arbiter of truth. Hence so many groups and special interests mobilizing to ensure that their — and only their — version of the truth would remain on scientific record.
This retraction is no surprise when we see consider the decadence of academia under the current woke dictatorship. Dark times we are living in.
Methodological flaws? Nearly every paper arguably contains at least one. If we were to take that seriously we’d have to retract well more than 90% of all, particularly in the social sciences. This was just a poor excuse to retract an otherwise perfectly valid paper (even if questionable, still valid research output, worthy of our attention).
I agree completely. It appears that the Nature communication just chickened out, because the paper represents controversial opinion. It is not appropriate to retract this paper. As a female scientist, I agree with conclusion.
This commentary didn’t say much about the (supposedly flawed) methodology, but rather they didn’t like the proxy measure, This is more a debate about theory and variable definitions, but is quite debatable if this is cause enough for a retraction. Some researchers may accept coauthorship as proxy for mentorship (though not with 20 authors on the paper).
Science Karen went to talk to the editor
This is just another political retraction. Nothing to see here. Outrage mob wins again. Academia is devouring itself.
Here is a new element of information: the same authors did a previous paper in the same journal with a similarly complex method Plus the use of a “black box” to identify “ethnicity”… Titled “The preeminence of ethnic diversity in scientific collaboration”, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07634-8, their conclusion is that:
“The underlying message is an inclusive and uplifting one. In an era of increasing polarization and identity politics, our findings may positively contribute to the societal conversation and reinforce the conviction that good things happen when people of different backgrounds, cultures, and ethnicities come together to work towards shared goals and the common good.”
It seems that nobody took the time to look at the details of the complex methods in this “positive” case. Is it possible that when the conclusions fit within the preconceived ideas, they are accepted without analysis and when they happen to put in question theses preconceived ideas then they are looked at until a problematic detail can be used to “retract” the paper?
This is a legitimate question.
Another example of the Outrage mob controlling the outcome.
Same authors used the same methodology in a different study on diversity, but there it didn’t show anything politically incorrect, so it wasn’t corrected.
Surely, the leftist intellectuals want that paper to be retracted aswell, right? Same flaws in the methodology after all. Just kidding, of course they don’t.