From: wskelly@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au (William Skelly)
Subject: Re: Dr. Fabrikant and honesty in science
Organization: Macquarie University, Australia.
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 08:01:16 GMT

In article <1992Sep1.054804.29704@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> pieper@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (John Pieper) writes:
>In article <1992Aug31.050420.8740@mailhost.ocs.mq.edu.au> wskelly@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au (William Skelly) writes:
>> [mega lines removed for everyones sanity...]
>>
>>      everyone one else should be acknowledged but if they
>>       didn't help _write_ the paper, they are not 
>>       entitled to _authorship_
>>
>
>Fortunately or not, scientific "authorship" has developed into a different
>concept from literary "authorship".  Research projects have grown in size
>and membership, especially in physics, and authorship has become the way
>of having one's work credited.  After all, who is to say whose contribution
>_within a collaboration_ is most important and whose is to be relegated
>to an acknowledgement?
>
Most good papers IMHO have one or a few _central_ ideas behind them.  Its
my opinion that the _authors_ of these central ideas are the only ones that
are relavent.  I would suggest that as always it is up to the authors of
the paper to decide who is responsible for what.





>>2. "honesty" -- authorship of an academic paper, is the same
>>    as signing a bank cheque --- its your reputation that goes
>>    on the line, you are saying that you stand by your commitment
>>    --- wrt. to the cheque it means you will honour your debt,
>>    wrt. to authorship it means that this is YOUR work, that
>>    you have not plagerised or perpetrated ANY dishonesties in
>>    the research represented under YOUR authorship.  For me,
>>    this is deadly serious.  Not only is itPaper dishonest to put
>>    your name on a paper that you did not help write, its bloody
>>    stupid, it basically says to anyone who knows, that MY 
>>    reputation really isn't worth a whole hell of a lot.
>>
>It is not dishonest to put one's name on a scientific paper which one did
>not physically write if one (a) contributed substantially to the work
>described therein, (b) has read it and made any necessary corrections
>relevant to one's own contribution, and (c) understands the conclusions
>and is willing to stand by them.  That is the name of the game--share the
>credit, share the blame if the results turn out to be wrong.  If actual
>dishonesty is involved, the source must be uncovered and the guilty
>separated from the innocent, but that is the case regardless of what the
>author line reads.

Yes, I accept the wider definition of _authorship_, lets says its a matter
of being able to legitamately lay claim to some intellectual copywrite, wrt.
to the work.  If (a), (b) and (c) and we agree that what we are talking
about is _authorship_ of the central ideas within the paper then is it still
possible to have 50+ authors?

>
>[deleted]
>>   "all aboard" authorships are making it more and more difficult
>>   to accurately assess what you have done!  People doing the
>>   hiring realise that there is a problem. Paper counting is NOT
>>   always delivering them the best people.
>
>Agreed--but finding a better method for finding the best people is _their_
>problem.
>

Sorry, John, I must be getting philosophical (ahhhhh) I thought cultivating
good science (identify the key people and funding them/hiring them
is part of this ) was everyone's problem.  At least in the "scientific
community" type perspective....

Cheers,
Chris 
>
>
>-- 
>John Pieper                         pieper@ucsu.colorado.edu
>Dept. of Physics
>University of Colorado at Boulder  "Nothing exceeds like excess."