For those interested in peer review try this about how a cat became a co-author to deal with the editor demanding a second author if the text used the pronoun we and the pre-word processor delight of retyping a paper to meet the demands of peer review.
“Why was I willing to do such an irreverent thing? Against it was the fact that most of us are paid partly by how many papers we publish, and there is some dilution of the effect of the paper on one’s reputation when it is shared by another author. On the other hand, I did not ignore completely the publicity value, either. If it eventually proved to be correct, people would remember the paper more if the anomalous authorship were known. In any case I went ahead and did it and have generally not been sorry. Most people are amused by the concept, only editors, for some reason, seem to find little humor in the story.”
Chester is believed to be the only cat who has published research in low-temperature physics. “When reprints arrived, I inked F.D.C. Willard’s paw and he and I signed about 10 reprints which I sent to a few friends,” Hetherington later recalled. “The story has now been told many times and my wife can add that she sleeps with both authors!”
Let's not forget Galadriel Mirkwood, Polly Matzinger's dog, who got himself a publication in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (which in turn earned Matzinger a ban to publish in that journal).
ReplyDeleteMarco
Straying off-topic a little...
ReplyDeleteIn my student days I was in a mediæval recreation society and one of our members was a prolific office-bearer and article-writer. He had a mighty reputation across Australia as a Renaissance man in the arts, in the martial arts, and in the sciences, and at every event where people from outside our group attended, no matter from where they came in Australia or even overseas, people asked after him and were often pointed toward a disappearing figure in the crowd.
He has a wonderful (canted) arms and I think he even rose to the rank of president of the chapter but there is one tiny problem - he doesn't exist.
It was an excellent inside joke on the political structure of the society...