[p-e-w]

> these are the kind of points peer reviewers would raise (though typically in far more esoteric and passive aggressive ways...)

If you don't mind me asking, how do you deal with this kind of culture, where a normal process is being purposefully obstructed with such behavior from the reviewer?

Do you ever call people out who sprinkle their "reviews" with such passive aggression? What is their defense? What highlights does your profession have that make it worth putting up with this?

[icelancer]

I have an i10 index of 2, h index of 3, 71 total citations. Not that impressive, but just goes to show I have some experience in this area.

So...

> If you don't mind me asking, how do you deal with this kind of culture, where a normal process is being purposefully obstructed with such behavior from the reviewer?

You just come to expect it. I realize this isn't the best answer or even a reasonable one, but it's how it is and there's really no controlling it.

> Do you ever call people out who sprinkle their "reviews" with such passive aggression?

No. Your field is dominated by experts who have a clique and run a crony network of influencers; getting mad at one of them is a great way to ensure you never hit tenure track / get punished on papers in the future (many journals are not blinded, or even if they are, it's fairly obvious who wrote a blinded paper given the subject matter in a niche field and/or timing attacks on the paper's submission + researcher's social media posts on the topics).

Sometimes - most of the time in my field - you have no idea who the reviewers were. I think this is typical for most science fields.

> What is their defense?

They suffered by much worse hands; really, they're being nice. (That's what they tell themselves.)

> What highlights does your profession have that make it worth putting up with this?

Very few. I work for a for-profit company, so the research we publish helps bolster the company's image, can be used in marketing, and so forth. Going from zero to one feels amazing. One day you're a guy with a dream that you'll publish an influential paper someday and give back to science, the next you have that publication credit - maybe even lead author credit - and going from 1 to N is just nowhere as interesting as going 0 to 1... like most things in life.

For some of us, science is in our blood, and it's our calling. Whether we like it or not. Most of the time, we don't. But we do it anyway.

[ericlnu]

To hopefully add to the discussion here. Not a scientist (professional), nor do i have a degree in anything (debt sucks), but AFA i see it, a reviewer shouldn't be evaluating a paper based on a popularity contest, but based scientific rigor and well reasoned approach that paper has. If the data is good, if their analysis is good, etc etc etc. On things that aren't dependent on being in a clique and/or popular.

That just smells of bad science, and make it not surprising the mainstream is "lagging behind". People actively stifling real scientific advancement, instead of letting it flourish.

I feel bad for people that do have that purity of purpose that either have to put up with that kind of BS, and people that have been victims of said behaviour.

I appreciate very much people who have it in their blood, their passion, like i have music and singing in my blood. You know you'll get someone who'll do the best job possible, and care about what sort of science is being done. Thank you for being you

[dataduck]

I came across this recently and your post made me wonder what you'd think of it:

https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall...

I won't butcher the piece with a poor summary but it's a critical look at the peer review process.

[icelancer]

I've read this post - broadly, I agree very much with it.

Unfortunately, inertia is a hell of a thing. Science is stuck with peer review for a few more decades at the very least. Many postgrads would do unspeakable things and commit various crimes to become a first author on a paper accepted into Nature, for example. It just means everything to academics.

arXiv is the biggest undermining threat to the professional peer review process, but in a weird way, it also bolsters it.

Anyway, at least Computer Science doesn't care much about academic journals. Hacker culture remains fairly strong.

[colonwqbang]

> arXiv is the biggest undermining threat to the professional peer review process, but in a weird way, it also bolsters it.

How do you mean?

[JPLeRouzic]

I am a layperson but I guess arXiv moderation is not different from peer-review. Some authors have voiced concern over the lack of transparency in the arXiv screening process.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArXiv#Moderation_process_and_e...

[stultissimus]

> If you don't mind me asking, how do you deal with this kind of culture, where a normal process is being purposefully obstructed with such behavior from the reviewer?

A huge part of the explanation is survivor bias IMO. The vast majority of undergrads who start in life science labs wind up leaving after a few months due to some bad experience (or at least lack of a sufficiently positive experience; life science is mostly failure). A large proportion of PhD students leave for industry jobs (tech, biotech, smaller subset to finance/consulting) because academic faculty jobs are very hard to come by and require making very little money for a long time. The only people left for the long haul are sufficiently motivated by the upsides (see below) to deal with the bureaucracy and problems of academic life.

> Do you ever call people out who sprinkle their "reviews" with such passive aggression? What is their defense?

Reviews are anonymous (this is now becoming controversial), and most people wouldn't jeopardize the acceptance of their paper just to call out a reviewer being an asshole. Slight saving grace is that the journal editor (who sits between authors and reviewers) has the final say, and can override unreasonable reviewers (in principle).

> What highlights does your profession have that make it worth putting up with this?

In fairness, some upsides if you make it: intellectual freedom (carte blanche to study anything you can get funded), sense of significance of advancing the frontier of medicine, freedom to work on and profit from startups if your tech is translatable (there is a surprising number of millionaire++ biology professors), very good job security, etc. Some would argue that many/most biotech companies take from 1 to N technologies that academic labs brought from zero to one. Some examples: mRNA vaccines, numerous cancer immunotherapies, CRISPR/Cas genome editing, recombinant insulin. Just look at the Nobel Prize in Medicine list – nearly all academic work.

[a123b456c]

My h index is around 20, which just means I have lots of experience with peer review.

Peer reviews are text, it is hard to accurately infer emotions or intention. What one person sees as passive aggressive another person might see as polite and deferential or even helpful.

Consider further that scientists come from all over the world and often have deep cultural differences, it becomes even less likely that you know the reviewer's intention.

Science is really hard and it's easy to fool yourself. Smart people want criticism to help validate and improve their work.

[ericlnu]

Agreed, as a counter/Devil's advocate point though, wouldn't what is being written by the reviewer be obvious whether or not it's just pettiness and other non-constructive criticism, versus something that was well considered?