Clément Zanolli
@clement-zanolli.bsky.social
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Paleoanthropologist, CNRS researcher at the University of Bordeaux (France)
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Reposted by Clément Zanolli
Reposted by Clément Zanolli
Palesa
@palaeoprotpalesa.bsky.social
· May 29
Enamel proteins reveal biological sex and genetic variability in southern African Paranthropus
Paranthropus robustus is a morphologically well-documented Early Pleistocene hominin species from southern Africa with no genetic evidence reported so far. In this work, we describe the mass spectrome...
doi.org
![3. The editorial also states that satisfying reviewer requirements “sometimes pushes the resulting paper outside the scope of the journal. Many such manuscripts were withdrawn in the past…”. While the journal publisher provides journal metrics to editors, the numbers alone do not tell the whole story. The reasons for withdrawal of a paper are varied and often provided only in personal email communications directly to the handling EIC. To give context for ‘many such manuscripts’, of 850+ papers handled over the past five years, <2% were withdrawn, with most (>1%) withdrawn either at the authors’ requests due to self-identified errors, issues during the online submission process that resulted in the inadvertent submission of the same paper twice, or unilaterally by the journal manager due to constraints imposed by the publisher on the length of time a paper may be in revision.
4. The editorial states “The three-reviewer system often leads to over-complicating the whole process [of review]” and invokes “increasing reviewer fatigue (Breuning et al., 2015) and pressures, especially on early career researchers, to publish their results faster”. This is then taken to be a reason to “only require a third review when the two primary reviewers offer dissenting opinions”. For many of the top-tier scientific journals (e.g., Nature, Science, PNAS), it is standard practice to seek a minimum of three reviewers. This is precisely because not only are good reviewers hard to find, but different reviewers focus on different aspects of a manuscript and a larger number of reviewers is crucial for identifying errors or flaws in complex often multidisciplinary studies that involve large datasets, computationally complex analyses, large numbers of figures and tables, R coding/simulations, and/or shifting of much of the details that undergird the study to supplementary material. This describes many of the studies that have been submitted to JHE in the past.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hy5ceslyrhhwdjfowhjgzfth/bafkreih4igmtoju5z47u5h5gnmoctxlnyzknwurv4ai4yxdq4y4yy6opn4@jpeg)
![It was suggested that those interested might consider the use of a social media platform to survey the paleoanthropological community to determine what the community really wants, and how and who best to lead toward achieving that goal.
As noted above, to move forward effectively, we also believe the paleoanthropological community needs to understand the implications of some crucial aspects of the recent Elsevier communications. Here are a few important clarifications:
Response to the Elsevier published note (https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-human-evolution/about/news/publisher-s-note-on-journal-of-human-evolution):
The publisher’s note states that Elsevier removed access to the editorial system for the editorial team because “…we had no indication at that point of involvement from associate editors aside from the signed letter indicating that they were stepping down and no longer wished to be involved with the journal”. This statement is perplexing because it directly contravenes communications from the Editors to Elsevier clearly stating their intent to continue to handle their in-process papers for a period of time, if Elsevier would allow it [see Footnote at the end].
The publisher’s note states that Elsevier “believe[s] in maintaining a clear separation between editorial decision-making and [their] commercial interests”. However, we contend that when 1) an editorial board structure is determined by a publisher rather than an editor or editors, 2) a publisher limits the expertise of that board by reducing the number of qualified Associate Editors, and 3) a publisher does not appoint Associate Editors vetted by the editors, those actions directly impact the editorial decision-making process.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hy5ceslyrhhwdjfowhjgzfth/bafkreicsqb54astayqrs6amqiqxtmgqf4ocsqwxp3rovia45ctftte6kr4@jpeg)
Reposted by Clément Zanolli
Reposted by Clément Zanolli
