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Originally Posted by parejkoj
Also, to just make a couple of quick comments about Bell 2007:
Dear FSM, how lazy was the reviewer? Seriously, how the heck (when mentioning this paper to a colleague, I used rather stronger language) did this make it into ApJ? It's terrible.
I've said elsewhere that Bell doesn't understand selection, and this absolutely proves it. He doesn't even understand what samples went into the catalog he used!
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Originally Posted by Bell 2007
... but whether the current VCVcat contains many AGN galaxies found in the SDSS galaxy survey is unclear.
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Originally Posted by parejkoj
Hmm... If I go to SIMBAD and look at the names of the objects included in Véron-Cetty & Véron, 2006, I see several at the top of the list with "SDSS" in the name. Seems pretty clear to me. And I didn't even have to read their paper to determine that!
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Originally Posted by parejkoj
Strike one! Though, in truth, that's enough to completely chuck it, I'd say.
I'm not familiar enough with VC-V to know whether this is a safe assumption for their catalog, but considering Bell didn't even know whether the catalog included SDSS quasars (and it took me literally 2 minutes to check, most of which was waiting for SIMBAD to load), I'm definitely not trusting his word on it.
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Either you did not read Bell’s paper carefully when you made the above claims or … well its better to just assume you didn’t read his paper carefully. Starting with your first Bell quote it is important to go back and add in the full statement that you snipped so that there is proper context:
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Originally Posted by Bell 2007
This paper examines the AGN galaxies listed in the VCVat and draws conclusions based on that sample. It contains the quasars found in the SDSS that were available at the time the catalog was prepared, and approximately 11,000 Seyferts and BlLacs, but whether the current VCVcat contains many AGN galaxies found in the SDSS survey is unclear.
Hao et al (2005a,b) have pointed out that although the color selection technique used in the SDSS is very efficient, selecting AGN galaxies is a complex process and requires that the optical luminosity of the active nucleus be at least comparable to the luminosity of the host galaxy for the color to be distinctive. Thus the color selection systematically misses AGN galaxies with less luminous nuclei at low redshift.
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Bell does know that the VCV contains SDSS quasars. You claim he doesn’t even though he says “It contains the quasars found in the SDSS …” in the very sentence you selected to argue he doesn’t. In addition, Bell was specifically saying that while the VCV contains SDSS quasars, Seyferts, and BLLacs, it is uncertain how many AGN galaxies from the SDSS survey are in the VCV - and he gives a reason. The color selection technique is biased against detecting AGN galaxies with low luminosity nuclei.
In addition, Bell starts section 3.1 with:
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Originally Posted by Bell 2007
Although in a sample like VCVcat it is difficult to take into account all of the selection effects that might be active, since the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) sources are likely to make up the largest single portion of the sample, the target selection process in that survey is worth examining
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It is hard to understand how you could claim that “Bell didn’t even know whether the catalog included SDSS quasars.” And from this carelessness you then claim that the referee was lazy?! Actually two referee’s – not one:
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Originally Posted by Bell 2007
I wish to thank two anonymous referees for suggestions on how this paper might be improved.
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Originally Posted by Bell 2007
However, since AGN galaxies are easily distinguishable from other types of galaxies, the normally strict selection criteria are not required in this case to obtain a source sample that is made up almost entirely of AGN galaxies.
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Originally Posted by parejkoj
Huh... Really? This is news to me. Guess there were a whole slew of posters at the latest AAS meeting that were completely irrelevant...
That statement is true for certain classes of AGN, given certain types of observations. And it is certainly true for luminous (optically selected, broad line) quasars. But for AGN in general? Not for any commonly used definitions of the term. I'm not familiar enough with VC-V to know whether this is a safe assumption for their catalog, but considering Bell didn't even know whether the catalog included SDSS quasars (and it took me literally 2 minutes to check, most of which was waiting for SIMBAD to load), I'm definitely not trusting his word on it.
Strike two!
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Since Bell did know that the VCV includes SDSS quasars I don’t know what to make of this argument. Did you understand the context of Bell’s statement?
Again – having the full context of the statement you selected helps:
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Originally Posted by Bell2007
All the sources listed as quasars and active galaxies in the updated Veron-Cetty/Veron catalogue (Veron-Cetty and Veron 2006) (hereafter VCVcat) are plotted in Fig 2. Since the VCVcat is made up of AGN galaxies from many different surveys, there will undoubtedly be differences in the selection criteria involved. However, since AGN galaxies are easily distinguishable from other types of galaxies, the normally strict selection criteria are not required in this case to obtain a source sample that is made up almost entirely of AGN galaxies. In that sense the VCVcat is probably the most complete sample of AGN galaxies available today.
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His argument was that we can be pretty sure that the AGN listed in the VCV are AGN as opposed to non-AGN. Was his argument correct? If not, or if not that simple, then in order to be a relevant argument against the content of his paper you would need to adopt the position that a significant portion of the VCV catalog objects listed as QSO’s and AGN are objects that may not actually be AGN – and therefore could potentially impact Figure 2 of his paper. Is that the position you’re taking? It’s your supposed strike, so it’s a very relevant question.
It would also help to know what AAS presentations you’re referring to. Do said papers present anything that makes it likely that the sample of QSO’s and AGN in the VCV are contaminated by a large portion of non-AGN?
Does any of this warrant a rejection of the Bell paper from publication? You see – you’ve twice now illustrated a questionable attitude toward refereeing this paper. First, you incorrectly argued that Bell didn’t know SDSS QSO’s were in the VCV and then suggested the referee’s were lazy and that the paper should’ve been rejected – based upon a snippet from a sentence in which Bell mentioned QSO’s from the SDSS. It is really not very good to have your critique contradicted by the very same sentence upon which you base your critique.
Then you make the error of suggesting a strike (and presumably basis for rejecting the paper) that you fail to justify with specifics. Implicit in the way you have made your arguments appears to be a notion that any debatable statement is grounds for immediate rejection of the paper. How about this – when the referee report is written, the referee asks the author to clarify or put some qualifiers on that sentence about AGN being easy to distinguish from other galaxies? Or … if the reviewer thinks that - contrary to what Bell was actually arguing - the VCVcat could be contaminated by a large sample of non-AGN, the reviewer ask Bell to go through the VCV sample and verify the objects are AGN – culminating in a re-plot of Fig. 2 after eliminating any contaminating non-AGN galaxies.
But rather than suggest improvements to the paper, you just throw out the whole paper based upon a flaw that you’ve not demonstrated is a flaw and may just be your own careless reading of the paper. What you’re illustrating is the kind of refereeing that gives refereeing a bad name.
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Originally Posted by parejkoj
Really, those two should be enough to toss this one out on the curb. But, since I started counting strikes, here's a good choice for number 3: his use of Stickel et al. 1994 to define the "radio galaxy" sample. Certainly FIRST is a better choice for looking at radio sources: it is uniform (as opposed to a literature search) it goes down to 1 mJy (compared to 1 Jy), has 5" resolution and includes about a million sources (compared to ~600). And it overlaps completely with SDSS, so there are optical identifications with spectra for many of the sources (a very trivial and stupid check gives ~40,000 SDSS spectra of FIRST sources). I have no idea why someone would use a much older survey to define a sample cut. |
Has anybody compiled a radio galaxy sample from FIRST? The original 1997 is cited 316 times in ADS. I didn’t really see anything among that list that is a sample of radio galaxies fitting the purpose of Bell – but I may have missed something so feel free to check for yourself. The Stickel et al paper is cited 109 times as recently as 2007.
However – let’s say he could’ve improved the radio galaxy sample with FIRST as opposed to the Stickel data. Do we reject the paper over that? How about asking the author to do the work of pulling a sample of radio galaxies from the FIRST data rather than just outright rejection? Would the FIRST data make a significant difference in the overall result? Shouldn’t we know that before we advocate rejection?
The refereeing process can involve constructive suggestions. When it doesn’t, if referee’s carelessly look to reject a paper rather than suggest improvements, it does a disservice to everyone. Yes, sometimes papers need to be rejected, but not with the types of arguments you’ve made. Your strikes were either incorrect or ideas that could be presented to the author as avenue’s to explore for improvement.