3 ms·

I don't care about their reputations. It's not a school mascot contest. These are scientific papers.

• tormeh 10y ago
  Yes, and scientists don't care. Science, as it has been explained to me by scientists, is a penis length contest, where impact factor and prestige serve as ersatz penises.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • apathy 10y ago
    The best part is that any fool can see that impact factors are a terrible proxy for real impact, and in fact the editors of several glam journals have pointed this out (disclosure: I have plenty of glam papers on my CV*). But since it props up a myth that senior faculty like to believe (i.e. their shitty old Cell paper is great because Cell is/was great) that's the yardstick. As the director of a CCC once told me, it takes too long to see the impact of papers (citations piling up) so the JIF is used as a proxy. Sort of like how it takes too long to do good science, so some people just publish whatever garbage they can sneak past the editors (ha fucking ha only serious). There is a LOT of crap in the literature as a result.