From: pieper@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (John Pieper)
Subject: Re: Dr. Fabrikant and honesty in science
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 05:04:11 GMT

In article <1992Sep2.080116.21356@mailhost.ocs.mq.edu.au> wskelly@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au (William Skelly) writes:
>>
>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.
>
Consider a paper in experimental physics, where the large collaborations tend
to be, and suppose that the starting point of the investigation was
"Let's look for Effect X".  This was the idea of the group leader who will
in all probability draft the resulting paper.  Now, is the central idea of
the _paper_ "let's look for Effect X", or "Effect X does (does not) exist, and
here's what it looks like..."?  If we opt for the latter, which I think is
reasonable, then does not the central idea belong in part to everyone who
helped in some substantial way to realize it?
>
[my authorship criteria deleted]
>
>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?
>
Yes, IMO.  Combine what I said above with the fact that in, say, high energy
physics, a large number of people working a large number of hours is often
needed to establish the central idea of a paper.  This includes for instance
those who built the detector electronics: probably it had to be custom
designed, which means that the designers had to have some ideas about what
they were looking for; they were involved in the science, and the result
simply would not have been possible without their expertise. In the ideal
they too are considered to have an intellectual stake in showing the existence
(or non-existence) of Effect X. 

>>[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....
>
But as a scientific worker I don't feel it is my business to encourage the
hiring/funding types to use poor selection methods like paper counting
by making it seem easier.  Our business is to do good science and credit
those who do the work. Theirs is to find the best people to hire/fund.  If
paper counting isn't doing the job, then let them poke around, visit labs,
talk to people and find out who is really doing the outstanding work. There
are some who do this already.

>Cheers,
>Chris 

-- 
John Pieper                         pieper@ucsu.colorado.edu
Dept. of Physics
University of Colorado at Boulder  "Nothing exceeds like excess."
Newsgroups: sci.research