Comments on: Caveat Lector: Mark Geier reviews Richard Lathe’s book

By: Research to Read With Care

Research to Read With Care — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:28:01 +0000

[...] often when reading about autism and hypotheses of its aetiology, caveat lector. Tags: asd, asperger, autism, biochemistry, biotechnology, Environment, Parenting, pdd-nos, [...]

By: paul

paul — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:39:37 +0000

The Lancet ceased to be respectable when it published highly suspect numbers on war deaths in Iraq and tried to back it with editorial ranting akin to some anti-war group of the sixties.

By: Club 166

Club 166 — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 06:15:51 +0000

When Mike Stanton wrote the Lancet regarding the review, they told him that the review was commissioned by a junior member of the editorial staff who was unaware of Geier's history.

By: Club 166

Club 166 — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 05:43:18 +0000

Any possibility that the book’s author might have been asked to “recommend” potential reviewers? Possible, but what I've run into is that whoever is the associate editor for the particular section that would cover it is asked who to review something. Generally they know somebody that's known in that area. They may end up asking the author, but I wouldn't think that they would. Not a big time place like Lancet, anyway.

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 02:23:36 +0000

Any possibility that the book’s author might have been asked to “recommend” potential reviewers?

By: Club 166

Club 166 — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 02:16:58 +0000

Looks like Lancet, a very respected British medical journal, really dropped the ball on this one.

The reality of these things is that book reviews are one of those “busy work” kind of non-paying jobs that usually the journal is grateful someone is doing for them.

Usually an associate editor will know someone who knows someone who can do the review for the journal. Usually this symptom works out fine, but sometimes (especially with a controversial topic like this) the journal can blunder.