“Peer review” re-viewed
Aug 26th 2005Wallabynerd alert
Nice example of the way “politics and personalities” impact the review process:
Office of the Special Counsel’s response to Sternberg’s complaints about his treatment after publishing the Meyer paper.
(Thanks to MikeGene @ Telic Thoughts)
3 Responses to ““Peer review” re-viewed”
What a bizarre letter from OCS! It reminds me a lot of all the misfiring done by the FBI when they bungled the investigation of nominees in the early Reagan administration.
OCS didn’t have jurisdiction, but takes a shot at Smithsonian anyway? That’s unethical. Is the letter author a lawyer?
OCS determined, contrary to IRS and reality, that NCSE is a “political advocacy” organization?
There is a certain Through the Looking Glass quality to Sternberg’s complaint, and to the OCS response.
Has Sternberg bothered to take his case to the real authorities? Why didn’t he take it to the Smithsonian’s Inspector General in the first place?
Well, it’s a good thing there’s that law confirming that there’s no formal bias against ID. Else I’d be half-convinced that this whole Sternberg-Meyer-BSW business is chock full of it.
Nice way to step away from the gist of the letter — that it was fairly clear to a non-scientific third party that Sternberg’s beliefs, or alleged beliefs, were so personally offensive to “senior members” of the SI that they took action against him. He really should have been a communist instead, witch hunts against “these [religious] people” (as one unnamed senior member of SI put it) are still alive and well in science. Those who don’t fully subscribe to orthodox evolutionism are suspect, they’re not true-blue full-blooded scientists, they’re “not our sort of people, dear”. Note how a good bit of the internal concern at the Smithsonian was based on the news that Sternberg was religious enough to have been trained as an orthodox priest. (I bet they would’ve strung ‘im up at the visitor center if he’d turned out to be one of them Pentacostals.)
The OCS letter concluded that the *only* reason for closing the complaint was that Sternberg wasn’t in the right job classification to be protected under Title 5 — not that he didn’t have what was shaping up to be a solid case. But then, that was the opinion of “James McVay, Attorney”. (That was in the letter, but the comment writer took a shot at OCS’ legal expertise anyway? That’s silly. Did the comment author read to the end? [/cheap shot])
The OCS letter offers no evidence of bias. As the letter notes, but incorrectly characterizes, all discussions inside Smithsonian concluded that there was nothing Sternberg did that was illegal, and no official action that could be taken. The OCS letter found no official action taken, and it found no unofficial action taken as a result of Sternberg’s actions as editor.
As a legal case, the OCS letter is a sham. As an official action of a lawyer employed by OCS, the letter may be a violation of the ethical canons of the law — the author unfairly makes conclusions without any opportunity for a hearing to determine the matter.
The OCS’s letter’s conclusions are wholly unwarranted, since as the author states, he did not see all the evidence nor did he make any effort to find all the evidence once it was determined that he definitely had no jurisdiction. Ethics rules for lawyers suggest that such a conclusion precludes accusations that are made in the letter.
Under the law, the OCS could have sent any findings to the Smithsonian inspector general. In fact, if he believes there was a violation of any duty on the part of Smithsonian employees, he has an ethical obligation to do that.
But he did not do what would be ethically required if he believed his findings to be correct.
What should we conclude from that?
I conclude cheap shot with political motivation, or very bad supervision and sloppy work at OCS. The other alternative is complete incompetence.
Pick one.