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Unfortunately, both systems are too easy to game by those who happen to be more unprofessional than average. In the end, these sorts of systems are foisted on
by thras 17y ago
Unfortunately, both systems are too easy to game by those who happen to be more unprofessional than average.
In the end, these sorts of systems are foisted on us by the paid bureaucrat-class that pays itself quite well for doing all that really hard work of managing academics. Figuring out whether someone is a hotshot scientist would mean reading his papers, and that's way too much work.
- knowtheory 17y ago1) Whether someone is a hotshot scientist is a subjective matter of opinion. 2) The question they are asking is not "How important are your contributions to science?", but "How important do your peers think your contributions to science are?" I'd probably go as far as to claim that it's nonsensical to search for an objective value metric for contributions to science. Scientific contributions are extremely heterogeneous, and value judgements are equally varied.
- amichail 17y agopeers = friends?
- thras 17y agoYes. There is no pure objective measurement, but...You still need to hire some people and not hire others. Value judgments are not randomly distributed. Science is a built upon forging objective consensus out of individual opinion. It even works pretty well.
- knowtheory 17y agoI'm not against ranking people, although i do think we need to keep in mind what the rankings really mean. And, i'd say that the rankings work well enough, but they're certainly not perfect, as pointed out by the article.
- Herring 17y agoThere probably isn't an objective value metric for contributions to the internet either.