Science Journal Retracts Paper That Veered Into Geopolitical Speculation By LILA GUTERMAN
Science and politics just don't mix. That's the message sent loud and clear by a scientific society and commercial publisher in retracting a paper about the genetic backgrounds of Jews and Palestinians.
Elsevier Science, which publishes Human Immunology, sent a letter to subscribers last month withdrawing an article published in the September issue of the journal. The letter asked readers "to either ignore the article in question ... or, preferably, to physically remove the relevant pages."
That letter followed closely one sent by Dolly B. Tyan, who was then the president of the society that owns the journal, the American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (ASHI). In her letter, Ms. Tyan, the director of the histocompatibility and immunogenetics laboratory at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, charged the paper with "purport[ing] to be a scientific treatise" while "offer[ing] opinion on geopolitical issues that cannot be substantiated by the data presented." She went on to say that "ASHI is offended and embarrassed."
The paper includes an explicit effort to "explain the historic basis of the present-day Middle East conflict between Palestinians and other Muslim countries with Israelite Jews." That, said Ms. Tyan in an interview, is the main problem. The authors say the groups are very closely related genetically, and go on to speculate that the source of the current conflict is "the fight for land in ancient times."
"Had they stuck to the science, it [would have been] a very interesting article," she said, adding that the journal invited the lead author to resubmit the paper "without the commentary."
Ms. Tyan explained that the paper went to press without the usual peer review and editorial oversight because it was part of a special issue being edited by the lead author of the paper, Antonio Arnaiz-Villena, the head of the department of immunology and molecular biology at the Complutense University of Madrid. She said he was expected to abide by the usual policies of editing and peer review. Although Dr. Arnaiz-Villena told The Chronicle that the paper did undergo peer review, Ms. Tyan said that the society has changed its policies so that in the future the journal's editor in chief will review special issues. "This won't happen again," she said.
Dr. Arnaiz-Villena expressed dismay, bewilderment, and anger over the uproar his paper created. In an e-mail interview, he insisted his article was "just a scientific paper" describing "a carefully done genetic study." In a letter he sent to ASHI members, he apologized if he had offended readers, but he said about his paper's withdrawal, "I do not think I deserve such a treatment after 30 years' work" on immunology and anthropology.