Back to [Archive] Reviews of papers rejected by other journals

1
Editorial lies
This is an example of the low quality and unfairness of traditional peer review. I received the following decision letter from the editor of Intelligence:
He wrote "Reviewers' comments on your work have now been received. You will see that they are advising against publication of your work. Therefore I must reject it".
There were 2 reviewers.
"They" should be replaced by "He" or "She" as only 1 of the 2 reviewers advised against its publication.
Here is the first reviewer's suggestion, clearly suggesting it should be published:
"This paper is one of the first to report the population genetics of genetic polymorphisms affecting intelligence. It will not be the last of its kind. Because it inaugurates the molecular population genetics of intelligence as a new research area, it should be given high priority. In addition to making a contribution to basic science, it tackles one of the hottest topics in intelligence research: the genetic basis for race differences in intelligence. "
The second reviewer clearly advises against publication: "The current work should be submitted to a journal with a focus on population genetics."
So according to Detterman, if 1 reviewer recommends publication and the other advises against it, the paper should not be published because 1 reviewer ("THEY") advised against its publication.
This shows how crippled peer review is. I hope this shows how much better an open interactive peer review can be, where this kind of abuses and editorial unfairness can more easily be avoided.
I had previously submitted another paper to Intelligence. After 2 rounds of review, I receive a rejection letter from the Editor saying "you will see that reviewers are advising against publication of the work". But the "review" section was blank, so there were not really any reviews. The Editor had simply decided to reject it, falsely claiming that his judgement was based on a regular review.

Here I reply to a comment by reviewer 1, whose review was very good and fair, but Detterman did not allow me to respond. I do this not to show any flaws in the reviewer, rather in the review process, and the editor, which do not enable constructive discussion. Luckily, interactive peer review of Open Psychology allows this and this is one the reasons why it is incredibly superior to traditional peer review.
Reviewer 1: “Discussion of Allen's rule: The reported results are actually contrary to theoretical expectations. If cold climates select both for higher intelligence and larger body size, we would expect a positive correlation between IQ-raising and height-raising alleles. Indeed, human populations in the tropics tend to be both shorter and more gracile than those from cold climates, with some exceptions (e.g., most Africans are as tall and massively built as Europeans). Can these seeming exceptions from Allen's rule (including the rather short stature of Mongoloids) be interpreted as selection for "brain or brawn" operating in different populations?


The reviewer here makes confusion between Allen's rule and Bergmann's rule. It’s Bergmann’s rule that predicts larger bodies (but NOT necessarily taller) among cold ADAPTED populations. Whereas Allen’s rule predicts thinner bodies, with longer limbs (thus holding body size constant, the height will be greater in warm adapted species) in heat-adapted populations. So the short stature of Mongoloids is not an exception to Allen’s rule, like the reviewer thinks. It goes probably more against Bergmann’s rule, although not necessarily so. Indeed, the Mongoloid type was taken as an example of a human adaptation following Allen's rule, : According to William R. Leonard of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida, human populations follow Allen's rule.[7] As evidence, Leonard cites a study by D.F. Roberts of the Anthropology Laboratory at Oxford University that showed human populations follow Allen's rule.[7] A.T. Steegman of the Department of Anthropology at State University of New York investigated the assumption that Allen's rule caused the structural configuration of the "Arctic Mongoloid" face.[8] Steegman did an experiment that involved the survival of rats in the cold.[8] Steegman found the rats with narrow nasal passages, broader faces, shorter tails and shorter legs survived the best in the cold.[8] Steegman paralleled his findings with the "Arctic Mongoloids", particularly the "Eskimo" and "Aleut," by claiming these "Arctic Mongoloids" have similar features in accordance with Allen's rule: a narrow nasal passage, relatively large heads, long to round heads, large jaws, relatively large bodies, and short limbs.[8]

Apart from this example, this shows how traditional peer review, especially if managed by an incompetent person, does not allow an author to reply to the reviewer, because discussion is forbidden by an editor who makes decisions based on his own biases.
The world is changing and old style peer review must die.
1