3 ms·

I may be a bit cynical, but at least in my former field (experimental physics), the main purpose of papers seems to be to "lock in" a finished achivement. You d

I may be a bit cynical, but at least in my former field (experimental physics), the main purpose of papers seems to be to "lock in" a finished achivement. You do the actual research, pass internal reviews and peer review, and then publishing the paper is just to make it "official". Unfortunately, many papers are never expected to be read. The crucial information exists, but you usually get it from personal communication, internal wikis, or review articles. You just need the paper to copy a formula or graph, and to cite it in the end. There are papers that are well-written and useful, but there are at least as many that are just drivel (I probably contributed to both kinds). Unfortunately, the prevailing attitude is that outside people will not understand our stuff anyway, so we often make no effort to make papers understandable, or to publish data. (There is a lot of great outreach and science communication, but not so much for students or researchers from other fields who want to follow the technical details.)

temporaryi3 5y ago
I did my phd in experimental physics and I have to say my realisation of this large point, that papers are little more than resume padding to lock in an achievement was a significant contributor towards destroying, and I use destroying seriously here, any faith or trust that peer review or publishing has anything at all to do with the scientific method at all. Your results replicate, or they don't. Your calculations, equations, and models predict experiment. Or they don't. Writing papers about it and getting the feedback of "peers" is nothing more than an old fashioned circle jerk for padding resumes, CVs, and persuading other people in that academic hierarchy that you deserve funding. It is a game that is divorced from actually learning, researching, understanding, measuring, and predicting the world.
- cyanydeez 5y ago
  There's probably space for a startup that properly archives the technical nature of findings.
- orbifold 5y ago
  In academia there always is a difference between the way results are advertised and what conclusions are drawn internally. This is more true in some fields than others, I'm most familiar with it ML, Physics. Part of your skill as a researcher is to understand based on omissions, the datasets etc. the quiet part that isn't said out loud. Depending how you sell things you can get a Nature / Science paper with confusing inconsistent terminology, hand rolled C++ implementation, provided you are the first and a another method which might be 1000x times faster will only make it into PRL (yes I'm thinking of two specific papers, but won't say which).
- paufernandez 5y ago
  +1
dsizzle 5y ago
Counterpoint: citations are a valuable currency in science. Arguably one of the best ways to earn citations is to do good work and write clear papers. Not saying incentives are perfectly aligned -- many citations are superficial ("this topic was studied before"), and papers count for a lot even if they're never cited, etc

temporaryi3 5y ago

I did my phd in experimental physics and I have to say my realisation of this large point, that papers are little more than resume padding to lock in an achievement was a significant contributor towards destroying, and I use destroying seriously here, any faith or trust that peer review or publishing has anything at all to do with the scientific method at all. Your results replicate, or they don't. Your calculations, equations, and models predict experiment. Or they don't. Writing papers about it and getting the feedback of "peers" is nothing more than an old fashioned circle jerk for padding resumes, CVs, and persuading other people in that academic hierarchy that you deserve funding. It is a game that is divorced from actually learning, researching, understanding, measuring, and predicting the world.

cyanydeez 5y ago
There's probably space for a startup that properly archives the technical nature of findings.
orbifold 5y ago
In academia there always is a difference between the way results are advertised and what conclusions are drawn internally. This is more true in some fields than others, I'm most familiar with it ML, Physics. Part of your skill as a researcher is to understand based on omissions, the datasets etc. the quiet part that isn't said out loud. Depending how you sell things you can get a Nature / Science paper with confusing inconsistent terminology, hand rolled C++ implementation, provided you are the first and a another method which might be 1000x times faster will only make it into PRL (yes I'm thinking of two specific papers, but won't say which).
paufernandez 5y ago
+1

dsizzle 5y ago

Counterpoint: citations are a valuable currency in science. Arguably one of the best ways to earn citations is to do good work and write clear papers. Not saying incentives are perfectly aligned -- many citations are superficial ("this topic was studied before"), and papers count for a lot even if they're never cited, etc