Nobody wanks like academics wank!
The Lancet (or at least its Editor, Richard Horton), and the Royal Society have been getting all down-and-dirty lately.

Horton started it, mostly with this:

The Royal Society began as a radical idea—a place to discuss the subversive subject of science and to witness remarkable experiments. It was an “invisible college” of natural philosophers who aimed to improve “Natural Knowledge”. But the Royal Society today is a lazy institution, resting on its historical laurels. Instead of being the intellectual hub of European scientific culture, it has reinvented itself as something far more self-serving and parochial. It is little more than a shrill and superficial cheerleader for British science. Its modern mission is about domestic image rather than international substance.

Well, they're not going to take that lying down!

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kraken_sleeps
2005-06-20 12:56 pm UTC (link)

I love Stephen Cox getting his claws out: The Society's journals practice the highest editorial standards. In this respect, it might be worth recalling the recent embarrassment experienced by 'The Lancet' in which it had to publish a partial retraction by some of the authors of the paper that sparked the MMR health scare. Presumably the practice of lax standards that endangers the health of children is not the sort of contribution to public health and medical research that Richard Horton expects from the Royal Society.

(Reply to this)

	morgyne 2005-06-20 05:42 pm UTC (link)
	Oh no you didn't! (What I really wanna see is Science and Nature get into a little fistfight ;) (Reply to this)(Thread)

	jaina 2005-06-20 06:20 pm UTC (link)
	I somehow picture it more as a sissy slapfight. g (Reply to this)(Parent)

	walkingundine 2005-06-20 07:36 pm UTC (link)
	How about a Cell vs. Neuron cage-match? No holds barred! Reviewers squaring off against grad students! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	indis_earfalas 2005-06-21 11:16 am UTC (link)
	Make it hell in a cell with some flaming tables and I'd even pay for a PPV. Hehe. I love academics, they get so snotty when they argue. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	adora_spintriae 2005-06-22 10:30 am UTC (link)
	It was an “invisible college” breaks out the new icon of relevant humourous reference (Reply to this)