> I'm not so sure about this last point. Yes there are nasty scientific > reviewers out there and the reason is that no one is taught to review > nicely. They've learned to be nasty either from someone they worked > with or, more than likely, from someone else who was nasty to them. > > Perhaps people in the scientific community and here on this list > should grow a thicker skin...but then one day, things degenerate and > get out of hand. And you end up potentially losing good scientists or > good Perl programmers...as Shawn quipped, to Python or Ruby. :-) Is > that good for Perl? Ok..."for Perl" is an exaggeration. How about, > "is it good for this mailing list"? > > As for the nasty scientific reviewers, IMHO, you should mention it to > the editor of the journal. No, you won't get your paper accepted -- > that shouldn't be the point. But as long as you have a good argument > and are *polite* and *constructive* in your response, the editor might > at least take a note of this nasty person and if many complaints come > in, s/he will no longer be asked to review. Again, IMHO, it is > perhaps better than feeling that being nasty is part of the peer > review process and then taking it out on someone else -- a vicious > cycle... > > Ray >
Ray, That is an excellent point. It is a vicious cycle, you grow a thick skin to protect yourself from the nastiness and the nastiness stops mattering, at which point you are likely to become nasty yourself. I still believe that one needs to protect oneself from the world, but not, as you said, at the cost of becoming a jerk. I also believe that it is possible to do so. As Che Guevara once said: Hay que endurecese, pero sin perder la ternuara jamais. One has to make once self stronger, but never at the cost of one's tenderness. Cheers, T. -- "Education is not to be used to promote obscurantism." - Theodonius Dobzhansky. "Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto Me ha dado el sonido y el abecedario Con él, las palabras que pienso y declaro Madre, amigo, hermano Y luz alumbrando la ruta del alma del que estoy amando Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto Me ha dado la marcha de mis pies cansados Con ellos anduve ciudades y charcos Playas y desiertos, montañas y llanos Y la casa tuya, tu calle y tu patio" Violeta Parra - Gracias a la Vida Tiago S. F. Hori PhD Candidate - Ocean Science Center-Memorial University of Newfoundland
