How Scientometry Is Killing Science

[Oxytropidoceras]

I found this paper to be a thoughtful commentary that is

well worth the time to download the PDF file and read.

Celâl Şengör, A M., 2014, How scientometry is

killing science. GSA Today. vol. 24, no. 12, pp. 44-45.

PDF file at http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/24/12/pdf/i1052-5173-24-12-44.pdf

Online text at http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/24/12/article/i1052-5173-24-12-44.htm

GSA Today - Vol. 24, Issue 12 - Table of Contents

http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/24/12/

Yours,

Paul H.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Oxytropidoceras

[Auspex]

The science of the study of science...

How ironic that it should have a negative impact!

[Doctor Mud]

Thanks Paul,

Interesting article.

There seem to be more discussions on the merits of stats like these in the field if science.

We are pushed to perform, and some people like to have a measure of that performance, as an employer, funder etc.

There definitely needs to be a consideration of the amount of work that goes into a paper.

I know with the sort of paleo ecological work that I do, it can take several days to get one data point.

Also I guess it can take months for a paleontologist to prep one vertebrate specimen.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Doctor Mud

[tmaier]

At least the metric of [(number of papers) x (number of citations)] gets away from the problem of being evaluated by how good of a schmoozer the person is.

[Missourian]

Cargo cult science is alive and well.

[tmaier]

And I'd like to add that in the areas of science that I worked, it was quantity of grant money that determined who outranked who.

[ZiggieCie]

IMHO; I believe that we are having a tremendous problem with "Science" around the World. There are huge issues that can be very damaging to civilized societies because of faulty scientometric types of Science. The obvious problem I see are scientists forging data results, creating confusing or inaccurate formulas to come up with so called scientific date to fulfill faulty political agendas; just to keep big government grants coming in. If you want a paycheck, you give the government the results it wants, to show that it's agenda is needed to save the world from some ominous, illogical end. If you challenge obvious hypocrisy, they are ready for you, with name calling, belittling, threats, cancellation of any government grants, anything to keep the true Science from being seen.

I don't think that scientometric logic is as limited as we would hope.

[tmaier]

I've seen the same bullying from corporations when they give grants. They expect a certain outcome for their money.

[ZiggieCie]

A simple example that will not cause any arguments; look at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant in Japan. It has not been contained; it has been spewing large amounts of radioactive material into the Ocean and the air for years now. Do you hear any accurate information being released on the amounts and direction of the radioactive material still being put into the world’s environment? NO!

The Japanese Government has shut down all "accurate Scientific INFORMATION'' from being released by the News agencies. Our News agencies do as they are told from our government, and as we learned this past week, what they think of us, "the stupidity of the American voter ". With this attitude, truthful facts are of no importance for the People to make decisions on, what to eat, what to drink, where to live, or the possible true/real dangers we face. These Governments are using faulty scientometric Science to keep the masses pacified and living in the fantasy. As I have said years ago, that if you do not know something, or are ignorant of the truth, you don't have to do anything; remember the old saying? “Ignorance is bliss". This does not work with the members of this forum; as we represent a higher IQ level of people, and if we are ignorant (not knowing) of a fact, identification, technique, or any other information, we search for the true answer and educate ourselves. Too many people will believe the governments scientometric information because it sounds good and then they don't have to do anything; “ignorance is bliss"

I hope this makes sense, it is still early here.

[tmaier]

That's not really the scientometric data that is being referred to in this article, but your point is valid. When bureaucracies and corporations control the outcome of studies, and they have a motive to hide or drive an opinion, then funding only goes to supporting that opinion.

We were having trouble with that when the first space shuttle blew up. Official investigations kept coming up with no answers. Finally the government brought in Dr. Richard Feynman. He didn't know anything about rocket technology, but he solved the problem within weeks. Feynman had a bad reputation of telling the truth and not accepting poop as diamonds. Previous studies had been producing smoke and mirrors, and poop. Feynman walked into the corporation that made the rocket, asked one of the lead engineers what his opinion was, and low and behold, there was the issue (then the engineer was fired).

The scientometric data people are discussing in this thread is that when you publish a paper, the "value" of the paper is often determined by how many people cite it as a reference in other peer-reviewed papers. It's a badge of honor that other people are building knowledge based on your paper.

Here's a paper with only three citations...

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/002223649190420X

so it is only worth 1 paper X three citations = 3 points

Here's a paper with 316 citations...

http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.68.1259

so it is worth 1 paper x 316 citations = 316 points

So the issues are:

a.) does your area allow you to pump out a lot of papers?

b.) does the number of citations really reflect the significance of the contribution in your field?

I think it is a better method than using the quantity of funding money or how popular you are with your peers and managers as a metric. Notice that this article complaining about how the system works doesn't recommend any other method, and I think it is because they don't know of any better method that makes sense.

Edited November 27, 2014 by tmaier

[ZiggieCie]

tamier, it is sad that people with no scientific knowledge designed their science program for the whole country, and now in other countries the politicians with no scientific knowledge, tell the scientists the results they want, and then it is up to the government paid scientists to create the paid for results. This is so sad for the future. If you don't know history you are bound to repeat it; look at the dark ages in Europe to see the results of telling science what the accepted results "WILL" be.

[tmaier]

It depends on who you get the grant from. A lot of the government funding agencies are controlled at the top by politicians, who allocate the total funding, but the lower level decisions of who gets how much money is done by groups of scientists. You submit a proposal to one of the agencies explaining what you are trying to do, and the money you need to do it with. Then the review committee selects the ones they like, and they get money. Another way to do it is to look at a "hit list" of research projects that these agencies want to have done, and then submit your proposal wrapped around that project description. Sometimes the scientists in the committees fund something that the politicians or the public doesn't like, but those types of feedback only come after the grant has gone out. Long projects, multi-year, might be rejected after the first year if there is pressure from above to stop the research.

And if you don't get research money, you have to teach or something to justify your existence. you CAN try to do research with no funding, if you are capable. I met this guy from Germany who had his funding pulled out from him and he was bummed out. He went over to make a xerox of the rejection letter, and the copier made an interesting flaw. So he ran that copy through, and the flaw multiplied. Then he did it 50 more times, making more and more flaws as each copy became worse. Then he studied the spread of the errors and wrote a significant paper on it, with no budget. He used old clunker IBM PCs that were lying around to do the mathematical analysis of the patterns because when he lost his funding, he also lost his access to the super computers. He was a pretty funny guy. He did a lecture tour in the US, and told us to look around and see opportunity where ever it exists, and don't get hooked on massive funding as the sole driving force. I liked what he was saying, but people recieving large funding were not too happy with his message.

[Missourian]

I've toyed with the idea of publishing, but then I figured, why bother?