Equal opportunities in science

A recent opinion essay by Prof. Tomas Hudlicky published in the journal Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed. has generated a wide discussion about the controversial opinion of the Author about the gender and minority balance in scientific and academic environments. The focus of the discussion is related to a comparison between the need to attribute academic and scientific positions and opportunities through a pure meritocratic process, and the target to pursuit gender balance and in general an equity of possibilities between Scientists of different social groups. Looking at the heavy reaction of many Colleagues, including some chemistry associations, who condemned the paper content on social media, it is evident that Prof. Tomas Hudlicky didn’t find much endorsement, at least in the web.

Honestly, I can see two major issues in the discussed opinion:

1) Science (and knowledge in general) has a very important social role, which can not be underestimated on the basis of the pure meritocracy.

2) The theory presented in the paper has not been proven by any scientific research.

In particular, the point 2 open to many speculations about the process of peer reviewing of many renewed journals.

Would be the case to push toward a full blind peer review process mandatory at least for indexed journals?

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