4 ms·

Getting increasingly cynical on this topic. Given the prevalance of introductions in popular media like, 'Professor X is a world renowned expert with O(1000) pu

Getting increasingly cynical on this topic. Given the prevalance of introductions in popular media like, 'Professor X is a world renowned expert with O(1000) publications'. Which my brain translates as 'Professor X probably barely read everything with their name on it.' There are precious few exceptions to this rule unless they are very old or are Paul Erdos. I'd much rather hear 'Professor X's most important contribution was Y.'

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
I don't know about that. There's no doubt it happens that people artificially inflate their citations, but how often? The fact that this cases like this are reported as something exceptional says that they are, most likely, exceptional, or at least surprising for the people who point them out (which again means that they are maybe not that usual). In any case, if this kind of thing is reported in the popular press, blogs, etc, it's because a scholar caught it and reported it, which means there are checks and balances that don't let this behaviour run wild all the time. And then again, there's going to be differences between fields- some will suffer from this kind of problem more than others, etc. There's no reason to "tar everyone with the same brush".
- jimhefferon 8y ago
  Perhaps, though, this is a three sigma case of a common phenomenon. There are a lot of journals and I expect that they consider that a half-full issue would be bad. There are a lot of paper-writers who are rewarded for more papers.
- jononor 8y ago
  If we are to believe experiments by Dan Ariely, everyone tends to cheat a little bit. It is covered in one of his books, this article seems to contain the summary. https://fs.blog/2012/05/everyone-lies-dan-ariely-explains-why/ https://fs.blog/2012/05/everyone-lies-dan-ariely-explains-wh...
- conjectures 8y ago
  I didn't mean to imply outright plagiarism everywhere all the time. I think there are many ways to get inflated numbers. If a PI has 3 collaborator PIs and each PI has 4 students writing a paper every three months then the PIs can get 48 publications a year. Over 20 years, there's your O(1000) publications in a model with no substantial PI time contribution. Given teaching loads, home life, university admin, academic duties like reviews I'd be surprised if a senior academic got 3 days per week to do research. I'd say at that rate the 4 first-author level contribution publications per year model would be optimistic. So a more realistic cap on the quality work someone could do in 20 years might be 80 publications.
  - gervase 8y ago
    I've worked in a similar system to what you described, with the top-most PI contributing essentially zero to publications directly. However, their fundraising efforts were singlehandedly paying the stipends/salary of 40+ researchers under them. I felt like it was totally fair to include them in the authors list, given that the research wouldn't have been possible without their efforts. I doubt the parent academic had O(1000) first author publications, nor is that mentioned in the article.
    - bjourne 8y ago
      No it isn't! That's like including your mom in an author's list because without her raising you, you wouldn't be a researcher.
      - wolco 8y ago
        If your mom is directly raising funds to support 40 paid position she should be included.
        jononor 8y ago
        In the acknowledgements, not as an author. Especially not as primary author.
      - 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Nasrudith 8y ago
You should because those are the metrics that actually matter. Everything else is just social clubs essentially. Which is a problem given sheer specialization. Academics has been infamously cutthroat for a while now. The iron law is that anything which can be gamed for advantages will be. The system needs updating so that what is gamed for is closer to the actual desired results. I suspect actual logic being incorporated into the judgements will be required which only makes things fuzzier. It is easier for more concrete fields to fall back on industries or failing that just numbers if it gets too theoretical like say maximizing energy extraction from a solar system. You can prove that say Kant has fewer followers than Ayn Rand but that says nothing about philosophical merits.
- honestoHeminway 8y ago
  Why should those who benefit from the system, help you to gamify it in such a way that the no longer can benefit from the system. In my opinion, a completely detached system has to be grown, to speculate on reform of the existing one without it coming under financial pressure- is unrealistic.
Bartweiss 8y ago
> I'd much rather hear 'Professor X's most important contribution was Y.' It's rather funny to me that for years, Cornell's biggest professorial scandal was Daryl Bem transitioning from groundbreaking psychology work to ESP studies. It was a much-discussed embarrassment for a while, then he started putting out successful ESP findings with uncommonly-good practice and people started worrying about what else you could prove in the same way. These days, it looks like Bem may come out rosier than some professors there who were still on the rise while his ESP work was causing outrage. Most of Bem's results are disputed at best, but they were actual contributions which led to further study. His methodology and basic integrity have never been seriously indicted, which puts him leagues beyond Wansink and Sternberg. With Bem, it's easy enough to talk about his most important 2-3 contributions and analyze their merits. The others look more like they were being paid by the word, and that should have been a warning even before the specific problems were found.

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago

I don't know about that. There's no doubt it happens that people artificially inflate their citations, but how often? The fact that this cases like this are reported as something exceptional says that they are, most likely, exceptional, or at least surprising for the people who point them out (which again means that they are maybe not that usual). In any case, if this kind of thing is reported in the popular press, blogs, etc, it's because a scholar caught it and reported it, which means there are checks and balances that don't let this behaviour run wild all the time. And then again, there's going to be differences between fields- some will suffer from this kind of problem more than others, etc. There's no reason to "tar everyone with the same brush".

jimhefferon 8y ago
Perhaps, though, this is a three sigma case of a common phenomenon. There are a lot of journals and I expect that they consider that a half-full issue would be bad. There are a lot of paper-writers who are rewarded for more papers.
jononor 8y ago
If we are to believe experiments by Dan Ariely, everyone tends to cheat a little bit. It is covered in one of his books, this article seems to contain the summary. https://fs.blog/2012/05/everyone-lies-dan-ariely-explains-why/ https://fs.blog/2012/05/everyone-lies-dan-ariely-explains-wh...
conjectures 8y ago
I didn't mean to imply outright plagiarism everywhere all the time. I think there are many ways to get inflated numbers. If a PI has 3 collaborator PIs and each PI has 4 students writing a paper every three months then the PIs can get 48 publications a year. Over 20 years, there's your O(1000) publications in a model with no substantial PI time contribution. Given teaching loads, home life, university admin, academic duties like reviews I'd be surprised if a senior academic got 3 days per week to do research. I'd say at that rate the 4 first-author level contribution publications per year model would be optimistic. So a more realistic cap on the quality work someone could do in 20 years might be 80 publications.
- gervase 8y ago
  I've worked in a similar system to what you described, with the top-most PI contributing essentially zero to publications directly. However, their fundraising efforts were singlehandedly paying the stipends/salary of 40+ researchers under them. I felt like it was totally fair to include them in the authors list, given that the research wouldn't have been possible without their efforts. I doubt the parent academic had O(1000) first author publications, nor is that mentioned in the article.
  - bjourne 8y ago
    No it isn't! That's like including your mom in an author's list because without her raising you, you wouldn't be a researcher.
    - wolco 8y ago
      If your mom is directly raising funds to support 40 paid position she should be included.
      - jononor 8y ago
        In the acknowledgements, not as an author. Especially not as primary author.
    - 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Nasrudith 8y ago

You should because those are the metrics that actually matter. Everything else is just social clubs essentially. Which is a problem given sheer specialization. Academics has been infamously cutthroat for a while now. The iron law is that anything which can be gamed for advantages will be. The system needs updating so that what is gamed for is closer to the actual desired results. I suspect actual logic being incorporated into the judgements will be required which only makes things fuzzier. It is easier for more concrete fields to fall back on industries or failing that just numbers if it gets too theoretical like say maximizing energy extraction from a solar system. You can prove that say Kant has fewer followers than Ayn Rand but that says nothing about philosophical merits.

honestoHeminway 8y ago
Why should those who benefit from the system, help you to gamify it in such a way that the no longer can benefit from the system. In my opinion, a completely detached system has to be grown, to speculate on reform of the existing one without it coming under financial pressure- is unrealistic.

Bartweiss 8y ago

> I'd much rather hear 'Professor X's most important contribution was Y.' It's rather funny to me that for years, Cornell's biggest professorial scandal was Daryl Bem transitioning from groundbreaking psychology work to ESP studies. It was a much-discussed embarrassment for a while, then he started putting out successful ESP findings with uncommonly-good practice and people started worrying about what else you could prove in the same way. These days, it looks like Bem may come out rosier than some professors there who were still on the rise while his ESP work was causing outrage. Most of Bem's results are disputed at best, but they were actual contributions which led to further study. His methodology and basic integrity have never been seriously indicted, which puts him leagues beyond Wansink and Sternberg. With Bem, it's easy enough to talk about his most important 2-3 contributions and analyze their merits. The others look more like they were being paid by the word, and that should have been a warning even before the specific problems were found.