3 ms·

It is not "imagined", it has very real consequences. If you have no publications in the venues that the scientific community considers "prestigious", you have e

• auxym 10y ago
  Or any job at all. It's going to be tough finding a good post doc position if you didn't publish during your phd. Hell, in Canada you have to do a master's before applying for a PhD, and you won't be getting the good scholarships and will have a hard time convincing the best researchers to take you on if you didn't publish during your master's.
• stcredzero 10y ago
  It is not "imagined", it has very real consequences. Just because the consequences are real, doesn't mean the predicates or hypothesis on which those consequences are based are real. For much of the history of the US, opportunities for men of African descent to fight in the armed forces were limited, justified by various notions of racial inferiority. This is not to make a moral equivalence in the two situations. However, it does point out that the reality of the underlying predicate is different from the reality of the consequences. (i.e. "The Map is not the Territory!") Just because the prestige exists doesn't mean that the prestige itself is based on something real. Prestige is a social construct. A different and better system of disseminating scientific publications could exist. There are a number of compelling reasons to believe a more modern system would serve the public interest far better.