Thanks for the more in-depth explanation!



`The second associate ed. and one reviewer both indicated that at best, I had discovered some variant of C. tenuis. In addition, I had purposely written the paper in a semi-narative format as I considered that the process in which the new species was discovered in itself was worth describing. The assoc. ed. wanted me to discard the real manner in which the species was discovered and in its place, indicated that after treating my sample of Contia statistically, I had teased-out the new form of Contia from the raw data. In other words, he openly urged me to be dishonest by describing a discovery process that never occurred.'



This is pretty amusing to me, as it's something that I learned History and Philosophy of Science people get aggravated by--they have a hard time figuring out what and why scientists are doing things. I'd figured they just meant the tendency in introductions to tell readers why they should be interested in a topic, while presenting it as your reason for conducting the research (when, of course, the real reason is probably pretty uninteresting: `I like snakes,' `My advisor wouldn't let me work on the system I wanted to,' and the like), but this is something else again...



`Both the asso. ed. and one reviewer indicated I needed greater statistical treatment of the data. The third reviewer indicated I should discard the statistical treatment since statistics are not warranted when there is no overlap in defining characters. I had mention this very thing to Dr. Robert Mason here at OSU. Why is it necessary to prove a statistical difference between black and white. Bob's response was that such statistics are essentially expected these days. As it turned out, I incorporated every suggestion and comment by that one reviewer except his suggestion to remove the statistics.'



I've noticed the pressure to use statistics, too. I don't really get it, but for some reason people seem to think the data aren't real unless you've got chi-squared tests and pretty graphs and things. It's gotten to the point where lab-meetings where I work were pretty much just examinations of whether or not the ideal statistical methods were used...



`As mentioned, I am a field person and not a writer. I probably have sufficient information on Contia for 2-3 additional papers. And just laying fallow are a score of projects either completed or near completion on C. bottae that could be organized and drafts written. At this point, it just isn't worth the hastle so until such time I get back in the mood, all of this 'good' stuff will lay fallow.'



That's too bad... if I had any experience whatsoever in writing scientific papers I'd offer to help, but, still being a lowly undergrad, I don't...



Patrick Alexander

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