bias in peer review

[matkisso at opal.tufts.edu]

On the bias note...

Women are just as likely to rate women lower than men.  I remember reading
about an experiment where the investigators did the following:

A scientific talk was prepared.

Two actors, one male, one female, were coached through the talk.  The
deliveries were identical down to the pauses and the "Umm"s.

Mixed groups (F & M) of graduate students attended the presentations, and
were asked to evaluate the talk based on scientific merit of the data, etc.

The woman speaker was rated as giving a less convincing scientific presentation
than the man, by both male and female graduate students.

*sigh*  We do it to ourselves, too.

Peg.