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Published online 4 June 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/453711c
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Even though, double-blind peer-reviewed papers are a fairer deal than single-blind. It is clear to me that the single-blind system is not only pron to sexual discrimination but also bias by likable in all its senses. On the other hand, do anyone see any prerogative for the double-blind system? I can not.
The anonymous commenter above says that "double blind peer-reviewed papers are a fairer deal". The Nature journals do not think this. We practice single-blind peer review (the author does not know the reviewers' identity but the peer-reviewers know that of the authors), managed by independent, professional editors, and we think this is a fair system. See here for further discussion of our policies and the reasons for them: http://www.nature.com/authors/editorial_policies/peer_review.html; and see here for a discussion of various systems of peer-review: http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/index.html
The anonymity was unintentional, sorry! I am well aware that Nature and other reputable journal as well as granting agencies favour single-blind over the double-blind system but isn't this more to do with the practicalities of the process rather than to do with the fairness of the system? - fairness towards the authors and even more important yet, fairness to science as a whole. After all, more papers are retracted from reputable authors that are from authors new to the field!
Why doesn't name comes up? Moderator! Yoel R GARCIA DIAZ
Your name is appearing now, Dr Garcia Diaz. Thank you. It is not any more difficult for a journal to operate a double-blind peer-review system compared with single-blind. But we have no systematic, independent evidence that the single-blind system does introduce a bias, so what would be the reason to do this? At Nature, it is extremely hard to get your paper published -- last year, for example, we published 7 per cent of submissions. We declined many excellent papers that are technically sound, on grounds of (for example) space, novelty of result and interest-level to readers. One's definition of "fairness" is, to some extent, subjective when it comes to one's own work. Individual people who have their manuscripts rejected in a highly selective system often think the decision unfair for one reason or another, and if that person has a factual reason for their view, we look into their appeal. But this is very different from claiming a demonstrated gender bias in the system as a whole. There is further debate about this topic at Peer to Peer blog, where many have expressed their views. Dr Garcia Diaz (and any other scientist), you are cordially invited to participate (http://blogs.nature.com/peer-to-peer).
Why not also cite the follow up article by Budden et al. 2008 TREE as they state that “The increase in female first authors within Behavioural Ecology (BE) was 7.9% whereas the mean of the other journals was 3.7% +/- 2.1 SD. So, BE falls on the 95% confidence interval (0.6%–7.9%).� Perhaps the jury is still out because there is not enough data and a lack of incentive for journals to make a change and see what happens! I am unconvinced by the results presented in Webb et al. 2008 TREE. They suggest that there was no significant interaction between gender and review type (-0.15 +/- 0.102, P = 0.134), indicating that the increase in female authorship over time in BE is not exceptionally different from the changes in the other journals in the field). What is their sample size? Do they really have sufficient power to detect a significant interaction effect with these data? In my opinion as long as there is a chance that a few scientists (e.g., Prof. P. Kantorek, of Ryerson University - Toronto Canada, see his blog post on a Nature blog and duplicated below) are apt to complete single-blind reviews from a gender-biased or racist perspective, then a FAIR, SCIENTIFIC and OBJECTIVE system should work to prevent this: A double-blind peer review system prevents this type of bias because even if the reviewer guesses authorship, they can never be 100% certain. http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080423/full/452918a.html “My experience as a physicist working with the occasional female colleagues leads me to a subjective impression that women really think differently. Female thinking seems to be more lateral then vertical. By that I mean, women in physics are generally harder working than male colleagues and are great co-workers in terms of encouragement, diligence, and backup support. They do not, however, contribute a great deal of original ideas and rigorous logical analysis to the research. Female judgment seems to more emotionally biased.� P. Kantorek, posted 23 Apr, 2008 As a follow up, perhaps the movement towards a double-blind system has to start from the bottom up? I call on the “71% of researchers that have confidence in double-blind peer review and the 56% that prefer it to other forms of review". Simply refuse to review any more articles from journals that do not maintain a double-blind review system. Why continue to volunteer time to a system that you don't entirely believe in?
I have responded to Dr Melles comment at Peer to Peer blog, and welcome any further discussion there, at: http://blogs.nature.com/peer-to-peer/2008/06/no_demonstrated_gender_bias_in.html