またNatureに「道徳性の衰退は幻想である」という論文が出たそうです．
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01848-7
哲学や倫理学の分野では，「道徳性」なるものの良し悪しはまだきちんと定義できる段階には入っていません．哲学や倫理学の教科書の記述のされ方を考えれば明らかでしょう．その為，こういった類の問題を問うても恣意性が過分に入ります．そういう普遍性を考えることは現在では無理なのですから，案件は個々に具体的にしか判断できません．
私の前回の投稿では，そもそも「道徳性」というものを取り上げてはいません．「社会事象」の行先が「悪い方向に進んでいる」としています．その具体例はたくさんありますが，例えば我々の専門である査読を例に挙げてみましょう．
https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.00959v8
という私の論文では，以前こういう査読がなされました． イタリックがレビュアーのコメント，ローマンが私の返答です．日本語は私が今回付け加えたコメントです．日本語だけ読むのでもいいと思います．＊＊＊の間に挟んでいますので，長いと思ったら次の＊＊＊まで飛んで下さい．
＊＊＊
Comments from the reviewer #2
Exploring group theory and topology for analyzing the structure of biological hierarchies
This paper is a hodge-podge of unrelated ideas that are randomly patched together in a pretense of coherence. It has various quite unrelated topics (the author has obviously read widely) supposedly linked when there is in fact no link. But almost everything -from mathematics to cosmology – gets thrown in no matter whether it has any relevance or not. I will give just a few examples.
(an end of the comments)
First of all, we have to state that this reviewer randomly decomposed the elements of our manuscript and rejoined them at his/her own will that are nothing to do with original scientific logics, as if the reviewer himself/herself acted as “the Sokal affair (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Sokal)”. In the following responses, we would like to show scientific nonsenses in these comments as unusual comments for peer-review.
売り言葉に買い言葉ですね．
(a beginning of the comments)
Pages 2-4 gives some biological introduction. The trouble starts on page 4, where the standard mathematical definition of a group is given. We are given absolutely no indication of what the group product law is supposed to be in the case of biology (well we aren’t even told what the group elements are), much less are we given any indication as to why the stated axioms of group theory should be satisfied once one has made some kind of identification with biology. The whole project fails at the very first step. For example “In this sense, pi can label a subgroup of community (from now on, provisionally regarded as \species") is literally meaningless. The basic biological identifications to make that meaningful are missing.
(an end of the comments)
The group product is shown clearly as just a multiplication of arithmetic operations in Page 4. For further information, please also read through Theorem 4.
論文を全く読んでいないですね．
(a beginning of the comments)
On page 5, fractals get thrown in. There are no fractals in biology: just a few cases where physiological systems are fractal like over a few orders of magnitude.
(an end of the comments)
This statement is wrong. For example, Halvin et al. (1995) proposed a fractal structure in DNA information, and some other examples in Chaos, Solitons & Fractals 6: 171-201. We cannot understand why the reviewer believes that there are no fractals in biology.
生物のフラクタルの例としては先日紹介した樹木や植物構造のフラクタルもあります．生物分野において何故フラクタル（様）の構造がないとレビュアーが考えているのか分かりません．
(a beginning of the comments)
Some stuff on kin selection is thrown in, followed by defining species by the norm of a geodesic. We have not been given a Riemannian metric any space (much less coordinates for such a space) which could determine a geodesic.
(an end of the comments)
This statement is again wrong. A geodesic can be defined in any branch of geometry, not restricted to Riemannian metric. The geodesic is for Selberg zeta function, and it is definable within the definition of the Selberg zeta function.
この人は数学も分かっていません．
(a beginning of the comments)
Chaos gets a look in together with diffusion equations.
(an end of the comments)
It is difficult to interpret this short sentence in the relation to our logics.
これは何を言いたいのか不明です．
(a beginning of the comments)
On page 6, we get Markov processes and information entropy and the Hardy-Weinberg principle (group theory seems to have gone at this stage).
(an end of the comments)
This statement is wrong. We clearly stated in Page 12 that we EXCLUDE Hardy-Weinberg principle in our model. We also do not understand why we always have to relate something to the group theory all the way thorough our manuscript.
何で群論は置いておいて一先ず別の側面から考えてはいけないのかが謎です．
(a beginning of the comments)
Instead we get a new definition of temperature. On page 7, the Lotka-Volterra equations and Bose-Einstein condensations. Next comes the Price equation (biology) and the Riemann Zeta function (maths).
(an end of the comments)
One cannot understand what the reviewer means in the enumeration of the terminologies. There is no logic here.
これも何が問題なのかが明示されていないので，意味がさっぱり分かりません．
(a beginning of the comments)
Then “speciation is thus related to prime numbers”. Absurd. I think by now it’s clear this paper has nothing to do with biological reality, its just random assemblage of stuff the author has read.
Startlingly, section 2 starts with real biological sampling of slime mould growth. This messy world of real biology does not relate in any way to the mathematical concepts of the previous section.
(an end of the comments)
We cannot understand why the reviewer believes that our manuscript has nothing to do with biological reality, because he/she did not present any evidence or references for his/her beliefs.
Absurdと言っている時点でもうアウトですね．何の引用もなく，生物学に自分の意向に沿うような制限を加えているだけです．
(a beginning of the comments)
Then we are back to the Price equation and logarithms, and Kimura’s theory of neutral selection. Back to pure mathematics on page 11.
Bosons and fermions appear on page 12. After reams of pure maths, back to the real world in Figure 1.
(an end of the comments)
As mentioned before, one cannot understand what the reviewer means in the enumeration of the terminologies. There is no logic here.
これもこの何が問題なのか分かりません．この人は文章を引用してそれに何のコメントもつけずそのまま繰り返すことが多いですね．
(a beginning of the comments)
Nothing whatever like the continuity assumptions underlying the previous few pages occurs here.
(an end of the comments)
This statement is wrong. In Lemma 2, it is implied that Continuity for Re(s) < 2, while Re(s) > 2 means more or less discrete dynamics.
これは単なる読み間違いです．
(a beginning of the comments)
We then revert to maths: Galois deformation rings and the Riemann zeta function. The groups come back on page 21 still without a definition of group multiplication in biology,
(an end of the comments)
This statement is wrong. First, regarding group theory, the reviewer had to use a term “product”, instead of “multiplication”. Multiplication is just one of four arithmetic operations. We utilize simply multiplication for product, that is clearly stated in Introduction, Page 4.
この人はどうも混乱しているみたいですね．
(a beginning of the comments)
and on page 22 topological theory enters, for example “Q;R are compact Riemann surfaces derived from the locally compact spaces at the population and species level” as well as fractal dimensions. Geodesics return on page 24 , Bose Einstein condensates on page 26, multiscale bootstrap analysis, machine learning of course (page 27), and “indistinguishable individuals with Bose statistics” on page 28 (!! This oxymoron seems to have escaped the author). Next comes free energy and enthalpy, Lagrange multipliers, and surprisal (page 29). No indication what any of this has to do with biology.
(an end of the comments)
Again, one cannot understand what the reviewer means in the enumeration of the terminologies. There is no logic here.
引用を羅列しているだけで何を言いたいのか意味不明です．
(a beginning of the comments)
Back to Washidu East and Washidu West slime mould populations (page 32) where the few (real) data points are in striking contrast to all the mathematical assumptions of the previous pages.
(an end of the comments)
Acta Biotheoretica is supposed to be a journal for theoretical biology. I do not know why the amount of data set matters for peer-review process in this journal.
数理生物学の雑誌で実データを何故たくさん出さないといけないのかがよく分かりません．
(a beginning of the comments)
Now we get internal energy, then some real graphs, then order parameters, Painleve equations and the Lotka-Volterra equations. Then (inevitably) an analogy to supersymmetry (page 37) and cohomology groups. Now we get the transactional interpretation of quantum physics and advanced/retarded waves. Ah, it had to happen, string theory rears its head: “The above system of matrices is obviously SU(2). Since the system is also a Kahler manifold without s = 1, the four-dimensional Riemann manifold of the system becomes a Ricci flat Kahler manifold/Calabi-Yau manifold”. The slime moulds??? Oh, “The system also has Riemann curvature tensors with selfduality, since it is a two-dimensional Ising model”. Instantons come in now (page 39). I have no idea what to make of “the worldline is parallel to vij”.
(an end of the comments)
We have to repeat here again one cannot understand what the reviewer means in the enumeration of the terminologies. There is no logic here. We are still in doubt whether the reviewer understands any steps for abstract modeling process.
これも意味不明な引用の羅列です．
(a beginning of the comments)
Cosmology enters now, with Hubble’s law on page 40 , the uncertainty principle, and the Planck scale (!) About 27 orders of magnitude out. Biology is obviously totally out of the window.
(an end of the comments)
We have to repeat the previous comment as following. The data presented in all the tables and figures, as populations of Dictyostelia community, are definitely biological data. It is clear that the manuscript mentions analyses for biological population and species dynamics. Cosmological model is adopted to describe the phenomenon of future development of Dictyostelia community. In this analogy, a fitness is regarded similarly as a distance of cosmological space model. All the physical models are introduced as analogies of something, based on mathematical resemblance between biological and physical models. Planck length scale mentioned in the manuscript is not at all physical Planck length scale. Planck length scale is the basement of analyzing a phenomenon of a quantized object, and it is normal that a scale in which a Planck length scale is divided by a double of pi (h-bar) is set as 1. By this setting, we can assume the Planck length scale to be 2π and it becomes a circumference length of a unit circle. This is important for introducing a symmetry in string theory (these days applied to macroscopic material sciences, beyond particle physics) in every system that can be regarded as a unit circle involved in the system (Please look up any textbook for a string theory). A unit circle is definitely important regarding a complex number being a multiplier of a certain base, as an imaginary part being an angle of the value. Everything is an analogy between biology and physics via mathematics. Group theory is, as indicted clearly in “Interpretations of Im(s) and Re(s) in group theory regarding p-Sylow subgroups and their topological nature”, a number of distinguishable interactions observed among the constitutes of the system being an element, and a product is just a normal multiplication, results in all the possible combinations of the interactions. Please read the manuscript carefully, not by skipping through the elements.
このコメントには真面目に答えました．
(a beginning of the comments)
Next are the three dimensional Ising model, and a superpotential. Now on page 41 we get “ Additionally, according to Steinhardt and Turok (2004), for a universe with constant Lambda, the scale factor a(t) and the Hubble radius H(t) are related by the Friedmann equations with our modification …” It goes on and on with random stuff being thrown in, with Chern-Simons action on page 46 and “there is another way of setting the Lagrangian on a boson” etc. What is the Lagrangian for a species? A conjecture by Srinivasa Ramanujan comes in on page 47 as well as an icosahedron and quintic equation.
(an end of the comments)
This is also the repeating situation. One cannot understand what the reviewer means in the enumeration of the terminologies. There is no logic here. We are still in doubt whether the reviewer understand any steps for abstract modeling process.
引用の羅列，多いですね．
(a beginning of the comments)
All the author has left out is topological insulators and the multiverse. I wonder why?
(an end of the comments)
Transactional interpretation-like logic denies analogy to multiverse. We do not know what the reviewer means by mentioning topological insulator, because there is no detailed description here.
この2つの専門用語を何故取り上げなくてはいけないのかが謎です．
(a beginning of the comments)
The paper is so bizarre that I wonder if it is a deliberate hoax, similar to the Sokal affair (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Sokal). In any case, its relation to biology – except for a few pages and graphs related to a real experiment, and a few pages of generic discussion of species the Price equation and so on – is so obscure and distant that it would be total folly to publish it. This fanciful theory will never be applied to determining what is a species in biology.
(an end of the comments)
Through all the enumerations and our responses above, it would be easy to understand that this reviewer randomly decomposed the elements of our manuscript and rejoined them at his/her own will that are nothing to do with original scientific logics, as if the reviewer him/herself acted as “the Sokal affair (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Sokal)”. For several points that manage to do something with science, everything is wrong. We have to admit that this is an emotional essay (e.g. utilizing words such as “Oh, Ah”, or “Absurd”) with no scientific meaning, unusual for peer-review.
ここまで来るともう限界です．
＊＊＊
以上のように，このレビュアーの場合は自分の思い込みに沿って感情的にコメントしているだけで，「なぜ」それがいけないのかを全くもって示せていません．それでOhとかAhとかAbsurdとかを語間に挟んで来ます．それで，全てのコメントについて反論できます．ただ，こういうレビュアーのコメントしか貰えないようだと，エディター側はこちらがいくら反論しても論文を受理することはできません．肯定的な意見の方が多いようでないと，エディター側がいかに同情的でもダメなものはダメです．こういった類の査読は私自身他にも受けていますし，自分が査読した論文の他のレフェリーもその論文に対してやっていることがしょっちゅうあります．時間を超過しても否定的なコメント1行でその背景が全く示されていない酷いものもあります．こうした状況は私が研究を始めた頃にはもちろん無かったので，「社会事象」が「悪い方向に進んでいる」ことの一例としてあげます．査読の場合，研究者がボランティアでやっていて自分の業績とも言い難いので，皆いい加減にするインセンティブが働くようになって来ています． “Noblesse oblige” なんて過去の話です．
それでも研究は進めないといけないので，論文を分かりやすくする努力は続けます．
