"Steve Bennett" wrote
Britannica also made repeated attempts to obtain from Nature the original
data on which the study's conclusions were based. We invited Nature's
editors and management to meet with us to discuss our analysis, but they declined.
If true, that's very poor on Nature's part.
Well, I have read the detailed analyses of errors, with the names of the reviewers, in a document a link to which was posted to this list. I wonder what more they wanted.
There's an odd idea in the EB document. They had 'peer review', except that of course it wasn't: those reviewing would for the most part be of greater academic distinction than those writing the articles. Now they want to second-guess all that. But not by getting a 'better' peer review done. More by meeting with Nature, and trying for retractions.
Rather short-sighted, in fact, in that alienating Nature probably is more likely to make it repeat the exercise.
Charles