In his Phys-L post of 6 Mar 2006 13:52:19-0600 titled "Re:
Suppression of Scientific Work" Timothy Folkerts wrote [bracketed by
lines "FFFFFFF. . .":
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In the linked article . . .[Which one ?? Many articles were linked in
Hake (2006). Folkerts is evidently referring to McKie (2001)]. . .,
it states (referring to the author of the disputed article):
"He accepts he used terms in the article that laid him open to
criticism. There is one reference to Jewish 'colonists' living in the
Gaza strip, and another that refers to Palestinian people living in
'concentration' camps."
. . . by choosing to use politically charged wording in his paper,
the author DID step at least a bit over the line of acceptable
science writing.
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According to Karen Shashok (2003) the "politically charged wording"
was due to the failure of the editor in chief of "Human Immunology,"
NOT the spanish author A. Arnaiz-Villena.
Shashok wrote [bracketed by lines "SSSSSSSSSS. . . .; see that
article for the references enclosed in square brackets]:
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Dr Arnaiz-Villena told me he was not given specific guidance or
instructions on language editing or copyediting. This is regrettable,
as English was not the first language of most of the authors in the
issue. Because the editor in chief never mentioned this point in her
correspondence with Dr Arnaiz-Villena, he assumed that he was not
responsible for language editing. It is usual for accepted
manuscripts to be copyedited by the journal's in-house or freelance
editors.[13] Dr Suciu-Foca has not replied to inquiries about what
guidance the journal gave its guest editor.
Certain words and phrases in the introduction section of the
retracted paper were politically insensitive and potentially
offensive to some readers. As Arnaiz-Villena readily admitted, the
literal translation of "cólonos" as "colonists" rather than the less
politically loaded word "settlers" was an error. A statement that
seemed to blame Israel alone for the outbreak of war in 1948 may have
been the result of a frequent (but none the less unpardonable)
translation error that confuses the active and passive voice. The
phrase "and started a war," which occurred immediately after a
mention of Israel, probably should have been translated as "and a war
started."
Because of the multidisciplinary nature of the study, some parts of
the introduction might have seemed out of place or irrelevant in a
medical journal. This, and a few unfortunate choices of word, may
have led some readers to misinterpret the cultural and historical
material as evidence of political bias. Kerans has published a
detailed analysis of how the text may have prejudiced readers by not
fulfilling their expectations of content and language.[14]
Although some readers were understandably upset, it is illogical to
assume that Dr Arnaiz-Villena would risk harm to his own and his
coauthors' reputation by intentionally offending them. Experts
familiar with journal publishing and the difficulties of researchers
whose first language is not English agreed that the problematic words
and phrases were probably the result of INADEQUATE TRANSLATION,
INEFFECTIVE LANGUAGE REVISION, AND INADEQUATE (OR NON-EXISTENT)
COPYEDITING.[14 15] [My CAPS.] Those who complained about the
perceived bias in the text-including the journal's editor in
chief-may have overlooked the fact that the data were collected, and
the paper was written, many months before publication.
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REFERENCES
Arnaiz-Villena A., N. Elaiwa, C. Silvera, A. Rostom, J. Moscoso, E.
Gomez-Casado, L. Allende, P. Varela, & J. Martinez-Laso. 2001. "The
Origin of Palestinians and their Genetic Relatedness with other
Mediterranean Populations", Human Immunology 62(9): 889-900; online
as a 900 kB pdf at <http://tinyurl.com/pkz9w>.,