A remarkable scandal has erupted concerning the editorial standards of two scientific journals. The journals are called Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders (RASD) and Research in Developmental Disabilities (RIDD). Both publications are owned by Elsevier, and they have the same Editor-in-Chief, Johnny L. Matson. Or at least they did until recently. Matson may have been removed - although it's not clear if there is a replacement for him.
The scandal emerged some weeks ago after Oxford University researcher Dorothy Bishop emailed RASD to say that she had concerns about the journal. Bishop asked to be taken off their editorial board. Instead of just Bishop's name being removed, however, all information about the editors disappeared from the websites of both RASD and RIDD. Overnight they became, as Bishop put it, Journals Without Editors. After Bishop blogged about this, things got even stranger. We learned, for instance, that Matson was in the ...
