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Peter Ratcliffe's Nobel Prize Winning Study Was Rejected by Journal

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Re: Peter Ratcliffe's Nobel Prize Winning Study Was Rejected by Journal

#11

Post by chrisseaton »

throwaway_law wrote: post #9
chrisseaton wrote: post #4

It doesn't say it explicitly in the article, but I guess the idea behind people sharing this story is to laugh at the original reviewer's foolishness, ignorance, or arrogance for rejecting Nobel quality work. But it isn't that simple. What was the context in which the original work was presented? Does the Nobel Committee know more now than the reviewer did at the time? Maybe the original paper wasn't written well eno…

>Rejection is usually a case of 'I'm not sufficiently sure this is good enough given the information I have in front of me' Last week there were a few articles about the rejection of numerous articles/papers that would go on to win the Nobel Prize. Obviously this is a very small set, but goes to show how easily Nobel Prize winning papers could have been lost to history. The rejections include everything from: -review…

Short of unlimited space to include all articles anyone possibly submits without any standard required, what do you think people should do instead except apply some subjective editorial judgement? It wouldn't be a journal if someone wasn't applying judgement - it'd just be a vast paper repository which isn't really the same thing.

Re: Peter Ratcliffe's Nobel Prize Winning Study Was Rejected by Journal

#12

Post by t_serpico »

chrisseaton wrote: post #4

It doesn't say it explicitly in the article, but I guess the idea behind people sharing this story is to laugh at the original reviewer's foolishness, ignorance, or arrogance for rejecting Nobel quality work. But it isn't that simple. What was the context in which the original work was presented? Does the Nobel Committee know more now than the reviewer did at the time? Maybe the original paper wasn't written well eno…

I would also add that journals like Nature or Science are aiming to publish high quality, high impact work in a manner that is highly specific (i.e they can be confident such work is high quality and high impact) and hopefully communicable to a somewhat broad audience. Ground breaking ideas out of left field may need some more time to mature before such journals would be comfortable publishing such work.

Re: Peter Ratcliffe's Nobel Prize Winning Study Was Rejected by Journal

#13

Post by Alex3917 »

JorgeGT wrote: post #6

Nature also rejected Fermi's paper on weak interaction ("contained speculations too remote from reality to be of interest to the reader") and Kreb's paper about the citric acid cycle ("It is undesirable to accept further letters at the present time") — both investigation would end winning the Nobel.

Karl von Frisch's Nobel-winning biology paper was rejected everywhere he submitted it also.

Re: Peter Ratcliffe's Nobel Prize Winning Study Was Rejected by Journal

#14

Post by dmix »

tombert wrote: post #7
chrisseaton wrote: post #4

It doesn't say it explicitly in the article, but I guess the idea behind people sharing this story is to laugh at the original reviewer's foolishness, ignorance, or arrogance for rejecting Nobel quality work. But it isn't that simple. What was the context in which the original work was presented? Does the Nobel Committee know more now than the reviewer did at the time? Maybe the original paper wasn't written well eno…

It mentions in the article that Nature said: > Given the discrepancy mentioned by reviewer 1, we have sadly concluded, on balance, that your paper would be better placed in a more specialised journal, particularly given the competition for space This doesn't necessarily seem bad to me, and doesn't seem like a criticism of the paper. If the paper is too specialized for something general like Nature, then they probably…

The papers are operating on a schedule and if the reviewer can’t understand it and there’s 10 other papers fighting for the same spot in the journal with positive feedback then it’s just the nature of the business.

A lot of external success is timing and luck. The legitimate progress stuff will eventually find a voice and in most cases respect will be given retroactively.

Re: Peter Ratcliffe's Nobel Prize Winning Study Was Rejected by Journal

#15

Post by eecc »

tombert wrote: post #7
chrisseaton wrote: post #4

It doesn't say it explicitly in the article, but I guess the idea behind people sharing this story is to laugh at the original reviewer's foolishness, ignorance, or arrogance for rejecting Nobel quality work. But it isn't that simple. What was the context in which the original work was presented? Does the Nobel Committee know more now than the reviewer did at the time? Maybe the original paper wasn't written well eno…

It mentions in the article that Nature said: > Given the discrepancy mentioned by reviewer 1, we have sadly concluded, on balance, that your paper would be better placed in a more specialised journal, particularly given the competition for space This doesn't necessarily seem bad to me, and doesn't seem like a criticism of the paper. If the paper is too specialized for something general like Nature, then they probably…

> > Given the discrepancy mentioned by reviewer 1, we have sadly concluded, on balance, that your paper would be better placed in a more specialised journal, particularly given the competition for space

Perhaps there's too much competition because there's not enough space? Science is not an industry notorious for excess in investment capacity...

Re: Peter Ratcliffe's Nobel Prize Winning Study Was Rejected by Journal

#16

Post by btilly »

That's nothing.

The most extreme such example is that everything that Barbara McClintock published for decades about jumping genes was questioned because it seemed like an impossible result. It got so bad that she stopped even trying to submit papers for publication anywhere after 1953. Then in the 1960s and 1970s the mechanics of transposons was discovered and she became hailed as a pioneer and was awarded the Nobel.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_McClintock for more.

Re: Peter Ratcliffe's Nobel Prize Winning Study Was Rejected by Journal

#17

Post by d--b »

> The journal in 1992 had concluded that Ratcliffe's study was unfit for publication as the direction of research was something which was beyond their understanding.

I think that this is a fair reason for rejecting a paper...

> “Given the discrepancy mentioned by reviewer 1, we have sadly concluded, on balance, that your paper would be better placed in a more specialised journal, particularly given the competition for space,”

Yes, that's kind of good advice too...

Re: Peter Ratcliffe's Nobel Prize Winning Study Was Rejected by Journal

#18

Post by mcguire »

throwaway_law wrote: post #9
chrisseaton wrote: post #4

It doesn't say it explicitly in the article, but I guess the idea behind people sharing this story is to laugh at the original reviewer's foolishness, ignorance, or arrogance for rejecting Nobel quality work. But it isn't that simple. What was the context in which the original work was presented? Does the Nobel Committee know more now than the reviewer did at the time? Maybe the original paper wasn't written well eno…

>Rejection is usually a case of 'I'm not sufficiently sure this is good enough given the information I have in front of me' Last week there were a few articles about the rejection of numerous articles/papers that would go on to win the Nobel Prize. Obviously this is a very small set, but goes to show how easily Nobel Prize winning papers could have been lost to history. The rejections include everything from: -review…

"Obviously this is a very small set?"

Nobel Prizes, by definition, are given for groundbreaking results. Almost by definition, most "groundbreaking" results are wrong. Even given everything else as equal, it is unsurprising that Nobel-winning results are rejected at least once.

Re: Peter Ratcliffe's Nobel Prize Winning Study Was Rejected by Journal

#19

Post by jessriedel »

tombert wrote: post #7
chrisseaton wrote: post #4

It doesn't say it explicitly in the article, but I guess the idea behind people sharing this story is to laugh at the original reviewer's foolishness, ignorance, or arrogance for rejecting Nobel quality work. But it isn't that simple. What was the context in which the original work was presented? Does the Nobel Committee know more now than the reviewer did at the time? Maybe the original paper wasn't written well eno…

It mentions in the article that Nature said: > Given the discrepancy mentioned by reviewer 1, we have sadly concluded, on balance, that your paper would be better placed in a more specialised journal, particularly given the competition for space This doesn't necessarily seem bad to me, and doesn't seem like a criticism of the paper. If the paper is too specialized for something general like Nature, then they probably…

> If the paper is too specialized for something general like Nature, then they probably shouldn't publish it.

FYI, this is a well-known polite euphemism. Papers aren't put in Nature because they avoid being too specialized. (Try reading a Nature paper today, and compare with a paper in a specialized journal a few decades ago.) They are put in Nature because they seem super impressive, and so even people outside the subfield might care. Saying "this paper is more appropriate for a specialized journal" just means "this paper isn't impressive/important enough for people to care, so we're not going to publish it in Nature, the highest-status journal".

Re: Peter Ratcliffe's Nobel Prize Winning Study Was Rejected by Journal

#20

Post by jessriedel »

eecc wrote: post #15
tombert wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It mentions in the article that Nature said: > Given the discrepancy mentioned by reviewer 1, we have sadly concluded, on balance, that your paper would be better placed in a more specialised journal, particularly given the competition for space This doesn't necessarily seem bad to me, and doesn't seem like a criticism of the paper. If the paper is too specialized for something general like Nature, then they probably…

> > Given the discrepancy mentioned by reviewer 1, we have sadly concluded, on balance, that your paper would be better placed in a more specialised journal, particularly given the competition for space Perhaps there's too much competition because there's not enough space? Science is not an industry notorious for excess in investment capacity...

Modern journals have no limit imposed by the process of publishing physical objects. Space is limited simply in the sense that Nature wants to maintain a reputation for publishing impressive/important results, and readers have very finite time and energy, so Nature sets a high bar for acceptance.
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