Lots of people have (rightfully) decried the NatCom paper and its potential effect on mentoring structure.

It also sets a terrible example for how to consider data and a scientist's responsibility to put findings into context.

When teaching students how to analyze and consider their data, one of the most important (and challenging) things is to know the body of literature that puts your research into context. A common and detrimental mistake is to look at ones data from only one perspective.

With any data set, researchers have a responsibility to truly interpret the results by knowing and understanding the literature that provides a foundation for that data set.

Whether it is a data set on reptilian physiology or mentoring outcomes, it is unethical to do otherwise.

But when you have a huge audience and your implications can be damaging to science itself, it is not just unethical to put your research into context, it is actively harmful.

This paper will be used as an example of how to take data and draw one narrow, myopic conclusion with little consideration of the *actual* research on the subject.

But the harm it will do to all mentors and mentees (regardless of gender) will persist. No matter what, people *WILL* change their mentoring decisions based on the conclusions of this paper, which will only exacerbate the highlighted problem.