science journals

By James McIntosh

Should scientific research ever be judged by the name of the scientist who performed it? Most people, scientists included, would answer "no." The quality of the research is far more important than the name of the researcher who performed it.

In Act I, scene iv of Hamlet, Marcellus warns us, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." Likewise, something is rotten in the state of academic science.

There is a stinking, pathetic double standard at the heart of scientific publishing, as well as science communication in general:

In the late 90's, Michael J. Fox starred in a television comedy called Spin City. As its name implies, the job of Fox's character was to "spin" the truth to make his boss (the mayor of New York City) look good.

Last week, a funny and clever hoax was perpetrated against a social sciences journal.

NYU physicist Alan Sokal thought very little of the research performed by his colleagues in the social sciences. To prove his point, he wrote a paper that used plenty of trendy buzz words but made absolutely no sense.

Science is one of the few institutions in America that has largely remained above the hyperpartisanship gripping our nation.

Some quirk of human psychology compels us to categorize and rank things.