Tag Archives: impact factor

Worthless citation counts?

from referee3

Even citation counts, the supposed gold standard, are close to worthless: only a tiny fraction of citations represent serious evaluation or validation, whereas the great majority represent nothing more than lazy copying and fashion-following. Two anecdotes demonstrate just how worthless citation counts can be:Some of the most highly-cited researchers in the world have been exposed as gaming the citation system and as charlatans. Papers with thousands of citations turn out to be false; obviously not one of those citations represented a serious validation.

Researchers are against the permanent rating of their work

I think most active researchers are against the permanent rating of their work by research administrators like

  • amount of funding received
  • prizes won and
  • impact factor of published work.

as nobody can reliable measure the true relevance of their work.

  • There is no generic value of money, it is only means to an end (and even a waste if we shell out too much money).
  • Prizes are good for some egos. But who really cares? 99.9% of all scientists are forgotten only a few years after retirement.
  • And impact factor?  The “publishing elite turned against impact factor” already 5 years ago as scientists are now tweaking the system by  by self referencing and de referencing others. Most papers published in Nature received fewer citations than indicated by the impact factor of the journal.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2016.20224#:~:text=Publishing%20elite%20turns%20against%20controversial%20metric,-Ewen%20Callaway&text=Senior%20staff%20at%20leading%20journals,its%20outsized%20impact%20on%20science.

“If the workforce is classified as either superstars or failures, cumulative scholarship is lost”

Citation from a book review by Sugimoto where the review is better. than the original

Science does not happen in a vacuum. It is a social and intellectual institution, rooted in historical, economic and political contexts. Underplaying these elements has grave con- sequences. Ultimately, Wang and Barabási deliver a dispatch from an era that assumed that science was a meritocracy – despite ample evidence to the contrary.

Science success sucks (sometimes)

Leo at zenhabits has a great new piece:

Why I don’t care about success. ‘Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.’ (Albert Einstein)
A lot of people in my field write about how to be successful, but I try to avoid it. It’s just not something I believe is important. Now, that might seem weird: what kind of loser doesn’t want to be successful?
Me. I’m that loser. Continue reading Science success sucks (sometimes)