tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322739827777311964.post4300578922998262636..comments2024-03-29T05:56:48.403+01:00Comments on Drang naar Samenhang: The Gains and Pains of Joint AuthorshipRolf Zwaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07617143491249303266noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322739827777311964.post-28417431605338840082013-09-03T15:07:26.211+02:002013-09-03T15:07:26.211+02:00Dear all,
two years ago I posted a Note on this i...Dear all,<br /><br />two years ago I posted a Note on this in the French scientific site <br />of the CNRS: <br /><br />http://images.math.cnrs.fr/Un-cas-d-inconscience,1004.html<br /><br />I agree in that a hard part of the resposibility is on the editors of the <br />mathematical journal (needed to say, Math. and Computing Modelling is a very bad one). juanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16224453405955130126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322739827777311964.post-78271358297124091192013-08-07T07:00:16.409+02:002013-08-07T07:00:16.409+02:00I have been dismayed by how little regard some sci...I have been dismayed by how little regard some scientists have for scientific process. I recently refuted one conclusion of an oft-cited paper on the economic impact of invasive species (Pimentel et al, Ecological Economics 2005).<br /><br />http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800913000785<br /><br />Among many basic errors, the estimate regarding the impact of feral cats didn't even multiply two numbers together correctly. People were just interested in the provocative headline that feral cats caused $17 billion in economic damage per year via predation on native bird species. No one cared (or cares) that the underlying math, science and logic fall short of a middle school level. Many defenders of the flawed estimate have objected to my criticisms not on a scientific level, but because they like the larger point that the estimate supports. This strikes me a a very precarious position for scientists to take.<br /><br />A recent Tufts Veterinary School article cited the discredited estimate in such a way as to reflect a clear lack of interest in how the estimate was calculated.<br /><br />http://now.tufts.edu/articles/cat-eat-bird-world<br /><br />The Tufts authors were entirely disinterested in the fact that the same journal that published the estimate they cited had published my refutation. They simply wanted to cite a big number to support the idea that their research is important (as I believe it is).<br /><br />Clearly this is not the way to approach science. <br /><br /><br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13386121422311043930noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322739827777311964.post-85500167814716445022013-07-26T12:29:06.503+02:002013-07-26T12:29:06.503+02:00Dale, your characterization of the Fredrickson &am...Dale, your characterization of the Fredrickson & Losada paper is on the money. Accepting this paper clearly has been an editorial error of epic proportions. You would think that the journal cannot simply let this stand.Rolf Zwaanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07617143491249303266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322739827777311964.post-68827106185913046512013-07-26T12:21:25.986+02:002013-07-26T12:21:25.986+02:00Hi Vic, just to be clear, I agree with you that ar...Hi Vic, just to be clear, I agree with you that articles shouldn't be retracted just because they are later found to be wrong. A journal editor should look at the reasons why something is wrong. Were the assumptions flawed, but reasonable at the time? Keep. Were the authors the unlucky victims of a Type I error? Keep. Was a clerical error discovered that completely invalidates the findings? Retract. Was there a conflict of interest that was not properly disclosed? Retract.<br /><br />The F&L paper is an interesting case; the paper isn't wrong, it's intellectually vacuous, and that's putting it nicely. It's not even that there is an error in the math. The math is simply irrelevant, there just to make the paper seem more sciency.<br /><br />My point was that journals are actually in an even better "heads I win, tails you lose" situation than the authors in a multiauthor paper, because on the one hand, they get credit (in terms of reputation and impact) for their role in curating the best papers, and on the other, when a paper turns out to be deeply flawed, it's the authors' that go under the bus, and the journal just washes its hands of the situation by publishing an opinion piece (and getting even more citations and a higher impact factor!). On Google Scholar the citation count for the four main papers in vol. 60(7) of American Psychologist are: 970, 92, 231, and 33. Guess which is F&L?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16433932891639112214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322739827777311964.post-16990560762035314222013-07-26T11:46:25.136+02:002013-07-26T11:46:25.136+02:00Thanks Dave. I agree. In the case of Fredrickson I...Thanks Dave. I agree. In the case of Fredrickson I feel that because she has used the model so much to promote the research, she cannot so absolve herself so easily from it now that it has been proven to be flawed beyond repair. In interdisciplinary collaborations, it would be easy to specify who did what. The geneticist would then not claim credit for the mathematician's work and vice versa. In collaborations within fields it is harder because of overlapping competencies. Rolf Zwaanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07617143491249303266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322739827777311964.post-28561548005235078612013-07-26T00:06:47.118+02:002013-07-26T00:06:47.118+02:00I also think that what you describe common: some c...I also think that what you describe common: some co-authors seem to be along for the ride. Often these free riders are senior people rather than buddies (this may be more of an issue in Europe than in the States). In such cases dividing the amount of credit by the number of authors would be hugely unfair to the junior author who may have done most of the work. Forcing authors to be clear about their contributions is a better solution. It is not airtight of course because some co-authors may be powerful and brazen enough to claim a bigger role for themselves than is warranted. Rolf Zwaanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07617143491249303266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322739827777311964.post-75545449990556054322013-07-25T23:54:38.401+02:002013-07-25T23:54:38.401+02:00Thanks! I can only say that I am in 100% agreement...Thanks! I can only say that I am in 100% agreement with you and that I couldn't have put it any better. The journal has a responsibility to set the record straight.Rolf Zwaanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07617143491249303266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322739827777311964.post-34125851938297624312013-07-25T22:44:42.616+02:002013-07-25T22:44:42.616+02:00Thoughtful as always, Rolf. I would suggest a hybr...Thoughtful as always, Rolf. I would suggest a hybrid model of limited shared responsibility. It's contours are blurry, but I would argue this is what we already have in place, at least roughly speaking.<br /><br />Any time you put your name on an article, you are assuming some responsibility for it. Presumably, even if having a mathematical model attached to her research helped get Fredrickson more attention and citations, on the whole, having the model discredited I would presume is a net negative, even if she shoulders none of the blame. So there's a cost to her, because her paper is undermined, even if there's no direct cost to her.<br /><br />Where I think it's appropriate that there be some cost is in order to avoid "willful ignorance". That is, cases in which co-authors don't do their basic due diligence to ensure that their co-authors work meets standards that they are comfortable with.<br /><br />On the other hand, assigning too much blame would lead to two problems: first, a deficit in trust -- I think it's healthy to have an academic community in which you're not worried that your adviser has pulled a Stapel on you, or is otherwise doing bad science. I think if they can explain to you what they did and how they did it, unless there's reason to be skeptical or suspicious, you should be able to trust your co-authors.<br /><br />The second issue is that you don't want to discourage inter-disciplinary collaboration. In fact, I think that we should be doing everything we can in the opposite direction. However, when you collaborate with people who don't share your expertise, while you gain access to a whole new universe of scholarship, you lose the ability to be able to critically assess it to the same degree as you could in your own discipline. I certainly wouldn't want to discourage a psychologist from working with an economist, or a geneticist, or a mathematician simply because she could not easily verify her collaborator's work.<br /><br />Dave Nussbaumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08638557883580286521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322739827777311964.post-55490334311408299872013-07-25T21:17:54.093+02:002013-07-25T21:17:54.093+02:00About the post: You know, I'm always surprise...About the post: You know, I'm always surprised that people don't exploit the loophole that multiple authorship provides. What's the cost of throwing your buddy onto a paper as a middle author? Virtually nothing. But for him/her, the benefits are huge: Professional advancement and grant funding, to begin. Indeed, shared responsibility might be the only check on this. Given the huge numbers of authors that I've seen on some papers in some disciplines, and the sneaking suspicion that at least some of the authors are added for no good reason, I've often thought that the amount of credit one gets for a publication should be divided by the number of authors of the paper.<br /><br />Dale: Journals are supposed to retract articles that are fraudulent. Cognition retracted Hauser's tainted articles, and when I was at JML, we worked to retract a particular article. Articles that just end up being wrong, though, aren't retracted, and I don't think they should be. The academic record ought to include not only things we think are correct, but things that could have been correct but we now think are incorrect. (Indeed, if you're a real Popperian, then all we can ever know are things that are incorrect, yes?!)Vic Ferreirahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02918584234743958018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322739827777311964.post-19083052049941124502013-07-25T19:19:58.831+02:002013-07-25T19:19:58.831+02:00Great post. Since you are an editor yourself, I h...Great post. Since you are an editor yourself, I have to ask, what do you think about the role of a journal that gives its imprimatur to a paper such as Fredrickson & Losada? Journals essentially define the academic record by choosing which papers to publish. So the issue of credit/responsibility for a good or bad paper goes beyond the authors. Journals act as though their curatorial role ends once a paper is accepted for publication. The barriers to publication can be obscenely high, as if polluting the record (or the journal's reputation) with a bad paper would be unconscionable. But when a paper is later discovered to be bad, journals just let the paper stand, essentially assuming that the academic record can straighten itself out through further publication and discussion. It's incoherent! It's like a gated city whose only defense strategy is to place its entire army outside of its walls.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16433932891639112214noreply@blogger.com