4 ms·

You are absolutely right. Furthermore, universities tend to require tons of publications to promote you. Things are spinning out of control. I know a few EU co

by nextos 5y ago

You are absolutely right. Furthermore, universities tend to require tons of publications to promote you. Things are spinning out of control. I know a few EU countries where the written norm is to need > 100 publications to qualify for a full professorship, with equally ridiculous requirements for associate and assistant positions. Obviously, this encourages and rewards completely broken practices. Many associate and full professors in my area only care about stamping their names into as many journal articles as humanly possible. Some of them are already beyond 500, with many of these in top tier journals (Nature, Science, Cell, NEJM). Obviously, they hardly ever contribute anything. Their serfs do all the work. Their job is basically to plot in order to stay on top of their neofeudal shire. In addition to this, funding bodies do nothing after fraud has been proven. ERC only terminates grants on rare occasions. https://forbetterscience.com/ https://forbetterscience.com/ discusses many cases of serial fraudsters who keep getting funded despite having retracted 10 or 15 articles in major journals.

tasogare 5y ago
> Many associate and full professors in my area only care about stamping their names into as many journal articles as humanly possible. [...] Obviously, they hardly ever contribute anything. Their serfs do all the work. This describe my lab's head perfectly. At first I found strange he was so angry about a side project paper I wrote alone quickly on my free time and asked to publish at a conference. Then I understood why: in his view, every minute I spend on my projects is one I don't spend on his projects. The guy approved my first journal paper submission, which had his name on it without even reading it. It was obvious by the lack of comments and when he asked a few days later during a lab meeting to change half the content of the paper... I'm not against putting name of people contributing to the research, even slightly and informally, but at this point this is pure leeching and exploitation. Then he wonders why my thesis isn't progressing (hint: because when I chose nothing about the topic, method and experiment setting I'm not really motivated to work on that).
derbOac 5y ago
One of the clearest examples of the publishing problem to me was the shift in meaning of last authors on papers over the course of my career. When I first started, last author meant the person who had contributed the least to the paper (in cases where ordering of effort can actually be determined -- often there's genuinely equal contributions). Often this was the senior faculty member, as they did little but sort of read over a paper or maybe supervise someone independently functioning. Over time though the last author came to mean "the more senior person" and then "the person whose idea it really is". So being last went from this thing that no one wanted, to this thing that people would kind of argue over. In the process the more manipulative cases, people would kind of casually say "oh I can be last author" realizing the gains from that position. It seems when a more junior person is doing all the work and is first author, an unscrupulous senior researcher will claim that "it's the idea that counts"; when that senior researcher is first author, it's "ideas are a dime a dozen, it's getting it done that matters."
- pc86 5y ago
  This seems a fantastic example of people caring a great deal because the stakes are so fantastically low. Just list everyone alphabetically. Problem solved.

by nextos 5y ago

tasogare 5y ago

> Many associate and full professors in my area only care about stamping their names into as many journal articles as humanly possible. [...] Obviously, they hardly ever contribute anything. Their serfs do all the work. This describe my lab's head perfectly. At first I found strange he was so angry about a side project paper I wrote alone quickly on my free time and asked to publish at a conference. Then I understood why: in his view, every minute I spend on my projects is one I don't spend on his projects. The guy approved my first journal paper submission, which had his name on it without even reading it. It was obvious by the lack of comments and when he asked a few days later during a lab meeting to change half the content of the paper... I'm not against putting name of people contributing to the research, even slightly and informally, but at this point this is pure leeching and exploitation. Then he wonders why my thesis isn't progressing (hint: because when I chose nothing about the topic, method and experiment setting I'm not really motivated to work on that).

derbOac 5y ago

One of the clearest examples of the publishing problem to me was the shift in meaning of last authors on papers over the course of my career. When I first started, last author meant the person who had contributed the least to the paper (in cases where ordering of effort can actually be determined -- often there's genuinely equal contributions). Often this was the senior faculty member, as they did little but sort of read over a paper or maybe supervise someone independently functioning. Over time though the last author came to mean "the more senior person" and then "the person whose idea it really is". So being last went from this thing that no one wanted, to this thing that people would kind of argue over. In the process the more manipulative cases, people would kind of casually say "oh I can be last author" realizing the gains from that position. It seems when a more junior person is doing all the work and is first author, an unscrupulous senior researcher will claim that "it's the idea that counts"; when that senior researcher is first author, it's "ideas are a dime a dozen, it's getting it done that matters."

pc86 5y ago
This seems a fantastic example of people caring a great deal because the stakes are so fantastically low. Just list everyone alphabetically. Problem solved.