A recent study in PLoS ONE featured a highly creationist stance and concluded that the human hand was designed by God, sparking debate over the quality of the editing and peer review process at the publication which had originally published the article but later retracted it.
Although the study was released back in January, it has taken the limelight this week due to recent attention of Twitter and the media, with many denouncing the findings as unscientific.
The team asked volunteers to perform numerous tasks with their hands, taking measurements of their movements and how they grasped things. At the end, the team suggests that the results of these tasks can be related the to presence of a creator.
"Our study can improve the understanding of the human hand and confirm that the mechanical architecture is the proper design by the Creator for dexterous performance of numerous functions following the evolutionary remodeling of the ancestral hand for millions of years," the team wrote, also stating that "hand coordination should indicate the mystery of the Creator's invention."
When contacted for questioning, Cai-Hua Xiong, co-author of the study, said he will respond as soon as possible.
"Indeed, we are not native speakers of English, and entirely lost the connotations of some words such as 'Creator,'" he said. "I am so sorry for that."
PLoS ONE has since released a statement on the issue in an attempt to quell the concern that many now have over its editing and peer review process.
"We have completed an evaluation of the history of the submission and received advice from two experts in our editorial board," the team wrote. "Our internal review and the advice we have received have confirmed the concerns about the article and revealed that the peer review process did not adequately evaluate several aspects of the work."
Despite the seemingly poor editing, some claim that although the logic of the paper is a stretch, the event has ultimately been blown out of proportion.
"There's nothing wrong with the data that I can see, but the authors do make a surprising leap in the abstract and conclusion," wrote biologist Paul Myers.
