Unpublishable Humor

by

Amrita Ray & Daniel E. Weeks

 

Our very fine limerick was judged unpublishable by the American Journal of Human Genetics:

 

User beware, one must take so much care

in matters statistical, be right and aware

lest LODs lose their meaning

and false positives be teeming

though nothing worth noting is there!

 

 

Our limerick was to appear as the conclusion at the end of our Letter to the Editor

 

Ray A, Weeks DE. No convincing evidence of linkage for restless legs syndrome on chromosome 9p. Am J Hum Genet. 2005 Apr;76(4):705-7; author reply 707-10. PMID: 15747259

 

But, unfortunately, the Editor requested that we remove our limerick:

 

Dear Dr. Weeks:

 

Attached is a response to your letter to the editor entitled "No convincing

evidence of linkage for Restless Legs Syndrome on chromosome 9p". We would

like to publish your letter (without the concluding poem) and this response

in an upcoming issue of AJHG. We would like to know whether you would like

to proceed with publication.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Stephen T. Warren, PhD

Editor

 

Acknowledgment:

We thank our colleagues in our Fall 2004 Quantitative Genetics class for helping us improve the wording of our limerick.