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Did The Motte already speak about this small story surrounding some controversy at psychology/psychometrics journal Intelligence? One of the, if not the, top journals for intelligence research to find publication as I understand it. Anyone privy to academic journal gossip?
Aporia reports "Mass resignations at the journal Intelligence: Numerous members of the editorial board resign after publisher installs new editors-in-chief."
The gist:
The dirt:
Haier scheduled (forced?) to leave as EIC, publisher puts out job listings, then picks candidates that are perceived as unsuited to the listing and the role according to a number of editors.
The reporting is brief. A whole 7 paragraphs. I might even say it's incomplete.
Missing from the reporting includes a reason why the current editor-in-chief, Richard Haeier, is stepping down. Perhaps he is retiring. Who knows? I assume he was well-respected within the journal if his departure leads to mass resignations. He did a too-long Lex Friedman podcast appearance a couple years ago. It's probably good to have one public facing representative for intelligence research. I couldn't recall any big hubbub from Haeier's appearance on Lex Fridman's show, so I looked for some. Despite the episode reaching 1.8 million views, Google only showed me one mention of it in a "news" search. It was crammed into Quillete's weekly Bare Link Repository
Also not mentioned in the reporting is the names of the two new editors Elsevier has chosen to take over the journal. "I will not name them here." One commenter (brief /r/SSC discussion) suggests it is because naming the editors would make it harder to reverse the decision, but it is reported as if resignations are already through. It's done. So this could be a professional courtesy?
If this is a pressure campaign from editors and academics that seek to save the integrity of the journal they've invested in, then why choose Aporia of all places to spread the word? Quillette and The FP might report on this. If the new EIC's are the types to destroy the integrity of your journal why be courteous to them? The publisher wanted to change course no matter which way. Maybe Things Are In The Works and we'll hear more in time.
If everything is done and the journal considered lost by its editors, then I do reckon there's not much use crying about spilled milk to "heterodox" journalists. If the reported angle is accurate Intelligence made it through 2016-2023 only to fall now. Talk about timing.
The new editors-in-chief have been named, Crémieux is tentatively optimistic, but that has to be weighed against the suspicious selection process and the reaction of the other editors.
I perpetuated fake news. This raises more questions. Why the big hubbub quitting then? Typical organization silliness?
Doesn't look like they've been named. Charles Murray and Cremieux vouch for the new, unnamed editors.Ah, I see they're named in Murray's reply to his post. Darn you twitter.
Still perpetuated fake news. Shame.
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Sounds like they shouldn't have a journal controlled by a large corporation as their field's schelling point! They should start their own journal with the old editors. What exactly does Elsevier control that matters, anyway? A name? The only thing would be some amount of prestige you can show to academia as a whole, or the university that employs you. Even then, from wikipedia it "is published by Elsevier and is the official journal of the International Society for Intelligence Research", so maybe the Society can just endorse the new journal.
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I have no specific information.
See Scott's article on Kolmogorov complicity. Researching possible group difference in IQ is a third rail for the career in pretty much the same way as applying the scientific method to questions of religion was in 17th century Italy.
Elsevier is a relic of the print era, making tremendous profits on the back of the scientific community. They do not pay the academics who publish articles. They do not pay the academics who review articles. But they charge the institutions which wish to carry their journals (which are generally the same institutions who pay the people who work for free to make their journals work) an arm and a leg.
They basically profit from the fact that the economics of signaling and reputation are messy -- just like you will not simply build a university which is considered as prestigious as Harvard, you will also not simply build a journal as renown as Cell.
Given that the publishers are in it to extract a profit by providing a mostly redundant service, it comes at no surprise that they make publishing decisions where they try to minimize harm to their bottom line instead of pushing for academic freedom. If the eye of the twitter (now probably bluesky) mob turns to 'Intelligence' and decides it does not like their findings, the damage to Elsevier could be much larger than the money they are making from intelligence research.
So even if all the editors resign in protest and leave Intelligence the kind of empty husk that freenode has become after everyone migrated to libera chat following the takeover, it could still be in Elsevier's interests. Wokism had a surge under the first Trump administration and might make a comeback soon.
Or I could be wrong and it could all not be related to the topic of the journal at all.
I had linked it as well, but axed that paragraph in an edit.
If they refund their prestige by, say, making all their prestigious domain editing expert volunteers leave they might also damage the bottom line. If the journal isn't financially viable they can try to turn it into a new kind of journal with a different mission. That would make sense.
However, since my post there has been a different assessment from two people that both have a history in intelligence research. Could be politics of other sorts that was sold as something else. Some clique angry one of them didn't get the job.
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