Mark, I know some stories (which of course I'll not post here) from the Crystallography field and from other fields where reviewers profit from the fact that suddenly they have new, interpreted data which fits very well with their own results. Stories like to block a manuscript or ask for more results for the reviewer to be able to submit its own paper (with "new" ideas) in time, or copy a structure from the figures, or ask for experiments that only the reviewer can do so he/she is included in the paper, or submit as fast as possible in another journal with an extremely short delay of acceptance (e.g. 10 days, without revision?, talking to the editorial board?) things like this. Well, it is not question of making a full list, here!. The whole problem comes from publishing first, from competition.
The hope with fraud with X-ray data is that it seems to be detectable, thanks to valuable people that develop methods to detect it. But it is very difficult to demonstrate that your work, ideas or results have been copied. How do you defend from this? And how after giving to them the valuable PDB? Finally, how many crystallographers are in the world? 5000? The concept of ethics can change from one place to another and, more than this, there is the fact that the reviewer is anonymous. I try to respond to my reviewers the best I can and I really trust their criteria, sometimes a bit too much, indeed. I think they all have done a very nice job. But some of the stories from above happened to me or close to me and I feel really insecure with the idea of sending a manuscript, the X-ray data and the PDB, altogether, to a reviewer shielded by anonymity. It's too risky: with an easy molecular replacement someone can solve a difficult structure and publish it first. And then the only thing left to the "bad reviewer" is to change the author's list! (and for the "true" author what is left is to feel like an idiot). In my humble opinion, we must be strict but not kill ourselves. Trust authors as we trust reviewers. Otherwise, the whole effort might be useless. Maria Dep. Structural Biology IBMB-CSIC Baldiri Reixach 10-12 08028 BARCELONA Spain Tel: (+34) 93 403 4950 Fax: (+34) 93 403 4979 e-mail: maria.s...@ibmb.csic.es On 3 April 2012 16:58, Mark J van Raaij <mjvanra...@cnb.csic.es> wrote: > The remedy for the fact that some reviewers act unethically is not > withholding coordinates and structure factors, but a more active role for > the authors to denounce these possible violations and more effective > investigations by the journals whose reviewers are suspected by the authors > of committing these violations. > I have witnessed authors being hesitant to complain about possible > violations and journals not always taking complaints seriously enough. > > Mark J van Raaij > Laboratorio M-4 > Dpto de Estructura de Macromoleculas > Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia - CSIC > c/Darwin 3 > E-28049 Madrid, Spain > tel. (+34) 91 585 4616 > http://www.cnb.csic.es/~mjvanraaij > > > > On 3 Apr 2012, at 16:45, Bosch, Juergen wrote: > > > Hi Fred, > > > > I'll go public on this one. This happened to me. I will not reveal who > reviewed my paper and which paper it was only that your naive assumption > might not always be correct. I have learned my lesson and exclude people > with overlapping interests (even though they actually might be the best > critical reviewers for your work). Unfortunately you don't really have > control if the journal still decides to pick those excluded reviewers. > > As a suggestion to people out there, make sure to not encrypt your > comments as pdf and PW protect them - that's how I found out about the > identity of the reviewer - as it couldn't be changed by the journal. > > > > I agree though that it shouldn't happen and I hope it only happens in > very few cases. > > > > Jürgen > > > > > > On Apr 3, 2012, at 9:10 AM, Dyda wrote: > >> > >> I think the argument that this may give a competitive advantage > >> to the referee who him or herself maybe working on the same thing > >> should be mute, as I thought article refereeing was supposed to > >> be a confidential process. Breaching this would be a serious > >> ethical violation. In my experience, before agreeing to review, > >> we see the abstract, I was always thought that I was supposed to > >> decline if there is a potential conflict with my own work. > >> Perhaps naively, but I always assumed that everyone acts like this. > >> > > > > ...................... > > Jürgen Bosch > > Johns Hopkins University > > Bloomberg School of Public Health > > Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology > > Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute > > 615 North Wolfe Street, W8708 > > Baltimore, MD 21205 > > Office: +1-410-614-4742 > > Lab: +1-410-614-4894 > > Fax: +1-410-955-2926 > > http://web.mac.com/bosch_lab/ > > > > > > > > > --
