Every so often, we get letters like the one below:

“Sadly I don’t agree with you, the work was already acknowledge by the … community and got a keystone scholarship. I am working in the field for more then 12 years, I think it is important and novel to so it will get a far review. I think that science and importance has nothing to do with your decision, I am sure that if this work was coming from a different lab, with a different PI sending it it was treated differentially and get a far chance and reviewed. Not surprising, I am not the only scientist that think that reviewing is about politics. Thanks for the time and consideration, I am sure this is the last manuscript I am sending to your Journal.”

What can I say? Our internal review process is not about politics. What benefit would we obtain from rejecting a good paper? This is not to say that we don’t make mistakes, but I can categorically say that we don’t like it when we make them. And if the paper had come from a different lab, the outcome would have been the same. As I hinted in my previous post, we sometimes turn down papers from very accomplished scientists.

Now, if there are scientific arguments to challenge our decisions, we’d love to hear them, as we sometimes do reverse them. But as I said before, angry letters like the one above don’t really do much for us.

Now, about this being “the last manuscript”, is that a promise?