Category Archives: Philosophy

Philosophy

Bürokraten

Wolf Lotter im Standard

Alle halten sich für kreativ. Doch unsere Kultur produziert Verwalter am laufenden Band.
Die Realität ist ein Witz, den man ernst nehmen muss. Auf einem Foto, das im Web kursiert, sieht man elf Männer auf einer Baustelle. Jeder von ihnen hat eine Bildlegende, in der steht, wofür sie zuständig sind. Der Erste sitzt entspannt. Das ist der Human-Resources-Manager.
Rechts neben ihm steht, die Hände locker in die Hüften gestemmt, der Marketing-Manager, daneben der Logistik- und der Communication-Manager, die sich dem Internal Supervisor zuwenden, der sich erschöpft auf einer Schaufel abstützt. Dahinter checkt der Security-Manager seine Mails, das macht auch der IT-Manager gleich nebenan, und der Project-Manager rechts von den beiden unterhält sich mit dem Product-Development-Manager, der seinen Fuß cool auf einem Erdhaufen abstützt. Den hat einer ausgehoben, der von all den anderen umringt wird, er steht in einem Loch und schaufelt und schwitzt.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 06.11.2025
Philosophy

Es ist höchst angebracht

es ist höchst angebracht: Springer nennt endlich seine Zeitschriften um

Der Anaesthesist Die Anaesthesiologie
Der Chirurg Die Chirurgie
Der Deutsche Dermatologe Deutsche Dermatologie
Der Diabetologe Die Diabetologie
Der Gastroenterologe Die Gastroenterologie
Der Gynäkologe Die Gynäkologie
Der Hautarzt Die Dermatologie
Der Internist Die Innere Medizin
Der Kardiologe Die Kardiologie
Der MKG-Chirurg Die MKG-Chirurgie
Der Nephrologe Die Nephrologie
Der Neurologe und Psychiater (DNP) DNP – Die Neurologie & Psychiatrie
Der Onkologe Die Onkologie
Der Ophthalmologe Die Ophthalmologie
Der Orthopäde Die Orthopädie
Der Pathologe Die Pathologie
Der Pneumologe Zeitschrift für Pneumologie
Psychotherapeut Die Psychotherapie
Der Radiologe Die Radiologie
Der Unfallchirurg Die Unfallchirurgie
Der Urologe Die Urologie

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 06.11.2025
Philosophy

How to Game Google Scholar H Index

https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.0638 explains an experiment leading to an increase of 774 citations in 129 papers basically as they

created a fake researcher (Marco Alberto Pantani-Contador — a reference to two infamous cyclists, Marco Pantani and Alberto Contador, each of whom was accused of blood doping). Copying and pasting text from a website, adding a few figures and graphs and lots and lots of self-citations … created six fake documents, translated them into English using Google Translate, and uploaded them to a new webpage under their university’s domain. It was a process, the authors explain, that took less than half a day’s work.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 06.11.2025
Philosophy

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.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 06.11.2025
Philosophy, Theology

Wenn die Seele den Körper verlässt

Es gibt zwar viele Fallgeschichten von out of body experience und Nahtoderfahrung. Angeblich soll der Körper auch 21 Gramm leichter werden aber verlässliche Daten gibt es keine. Eine neue Arbeit beschreibt aber nun die Hirnaktivität eines 87jährigen der einen Herzstillstand unter laufendem EEG erleidet.

Cross-frequency coupling revealed modulation of left-hemispheric gamma activity by alpha and theta rhythms across all windows, even after cessation of cerebral blood flow. The strongest coupling is observed for narrow- and broad-band gamma activity by the alpha waves during left-sided suppression and after cardiac arrest.

Die Vorerkrankung schränkt die Aussagekraft zwar ein, aber die Autoren schreiben

The alpha band is thought to critically interfere in cognitive processes by inhibiting networks that are irrelevant or disruptive … Given that cross-coupling between alpha and gamma activity is involved in cognitive processes and memory recall in healthy subjects, it is intriguing to speculate that such activity could support a last “recall of life” that may take place in the near-death state.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 06.11.2025
Philosophy

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.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 06.11.2025
Philosophy

Good scientists doing wrong

There is an interesting study “When Good People Break Bad: Moral Impression Violations in Everyday Life” by  the Canadian PhD student  Kate Guan and her advisor Steven Heine. It is a phenomenon that is annoying many people if we look at the reactions to Twitter posts und PubPeer entries accusing scientists of wrong doing. The paper provides some explanations Continue reading Good scientists doing wrong →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 06.11.2025
Philosophy

PubPeer should be merged into Pubmed (at some time point)

PubMed had an own comments feature “PubMed Commons” which had been shut down in 2018.

NIH announced it will be discontinuing the service — which allowed only signed comments from authors with papers indexed in PubMed, among other restrictions — after more than four years, due to a lack of interest.

But there is no lack of interest, if we look at the ever increasing rates at PubPeer – the counter today is 122.000.

The main  difference between PubMed Commons and PubPeer is the chance of submitting anonymous comments. While I also see a risk of unjustified accusations or online stalking, I believe that the current PubPeer coordinators handle this issue very well. We can post only issues that are obvious, directly visible or backed up by another source. Continue reading PubPeer should be merged into Pubmed (at some time point) →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 06.11.2025
Philosophy

Wissenschaftsrat fordert Open Access

Wissenschaftsrat fordert: Open Access soll zum Standard gemacht werden [Quelle]

Der freie Zugang zu wissenschaftlichen Publikationen stärkt die Forschung, steigert die gesellschaftliche Rezeption und erhöht die Wirtschaftlichkeit.
Je schneller und breiter Forschungsergebnisse rezipiert und diskutiert werden, desto schneller können andere Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler darauf aufbauen. Nicht erst durch die COVID-19-Pandemie ist deutlich geworden, dass der unmittelbare freie Zugang zu neuen wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen für den Fortschritt der Wissenschaft und für die Gesellschaft von großer Bedeutung ist. Der Wissenschaftsrat tritt daher dafür ein, dass die Endfassungen (Version of Record) wissenschaftlicher Publikationen sofort, dauerhaft, am ursprünglichen Publikationsort und unter einer offenen Lizenz (CC BY) frei verfügbar gemacht werden.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 06.11.2025
Philosophy

Wissenschaft als Ware

DER SPIEGEL gestern

“Wir forschen ja nicht zum Selbstzweck”

Die TU München will Studierende besser auf den Arbeitsmarkt vorbereiten und baut dafür ihre Struktur um: Statt Fakultäten gibt es bald nur noch interdisziplinäre »Schools«. Sieht so die Zukunft der Hochschulen aus?

Wie die Zukunft aussieht weiss ich nicht, aber ich sehe natürlich wie die Walmartisierung immer weiter fortschreitet

Historian Philip Mirowski offered a … diagnosis in his 2011 book Science Mart. In the title, the word Mart is a reference to the retail giant Walmart, used by Mirowski as a metaphor for the commodification of science. In Mirowski’s analysis, the quality of science collapses when it becomes a commodity being traded in a market. Mirowski argues his case by tracing the decay of science to the decision of major corporations to close their in-house laboratories. They outsourced their work to universities in an effort to reduce costs and increase profits. The corporations subsequently moved their research away from universities to an even cheaper option – Contract Research Organizations.

und noch ein Auszug von derselben Seite, diesmal mit Bezug auf Luhmann

.. each system, such as economy, science, religion or media, communicates using its own code: true and false for science, profit and loss for the economy, news and no-news for the media, and so on. According to some sociologists, science’s mediatization, its commodification and its politicization, as a result of the structural coupling among systems, have led to a confusion of the original system codes. If science’s code of true and false is substituted with those of the other systems, such as profit and loss or news and no-news, science enters into an internal crisis.

(damit sei nun verraten daß dieser Blog auch nichts anderes ist als ein kleiner Luhmannscher Zettelkasten )

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 06.11.2025
Philosophy

Self correcting science – an empty promise?

An important link to thenewstatistics.com

I saw a talk by David Allison about his efforts to correct simple statistical mistakes in the published literature. He would notice a clear and obvious error, like a claimed interaction that wasn’t actually tested properly. He would then send a polite email to the authors to explain the situation so it could be corrected. If the authors didn’t respond, he’d move on to the editors. He went through case after case that he had pursued, and the result was almost always the same: indifference.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 06.11.2025