> Biology is obsessed with high impact, and I argue science is ill served by > this preoccupation. When two equally good scientists apply for a job, which one will be selected, the one with N-C-S publications or the one with J-B-C publications?
Alex On Apr 19, 2012, at 9:42 AM, Patrick Loll wrote: >> >> Well, it is clear from this comment that in different fields there are >> different rules... . In macromolecular Xtallolgraphy, where some people deal >> with biologists from biomedical sciences, the impact of journals is an >> important aspect during evaluation and, unfortunately, pre-publication >> review of structures has no actual value in their field. For a structural >> BIO-logist in biomedical sciences, a paper it is not "just a paper", it is >> an effort of years reduced to a (or few) paper(s). The non-structural >> BIO-people understand what is a Cell paper, but not at all about what it is >> a pre-publication of a structure. My thougts go in the direction of grant >> applications, fellowships, promotion, all filtered by the impact factor but >> not by pre-publication of structures which, btw, it is neither considered in >> the h-index of a researcher. >> > > Oh what the hell, someone else poured the gasoline, I may as well supply a > lit match: > > What Maria says is absolutely true--I dwell among biologists, so I fully > understand the rules of the field. But it's not so clear that these rules are > good ones. > > Biology is obsessed with high impact, and I argue science is ill served by > this preoccupation. The highest impact-factor journals seem to have the > highest number of retractions (see this past Tuesday's New York Times Science > section for a discussion). And in this forum it's certainly germane to note > that the technical quality of published structures is, on average, poorer in > the highest impact journals (at least by some criteria; see the paper from > Brown & Ramaswamy in Acta Crystallogr D63: 941-50 (2007)). > > Pat > --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Patrick J. Loll, Ph. D. > Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology > Director, Biochemistry Graduate Program > Drexel University College of Medicine > Room 10-102 New College Building > 245 N. 15th St., Mailstop 497 > Philadelphia, PA 19102-1192 USA > > (215) 762-7706 > pat.l...@drexelmed.edu
