John Denney over at Evilutionary Biologist makes an interesting point: How often and how much knowing the reputation of the author of a paper influences the opinion we get from reading it?
The discussion was sparked by a piece on the journal Nature.
Would it not be better if the review process was double blinded, as it happens in the case of clinical trials of new drugs?
I do happen to think it is a good idea too.
It is certainly possible to guess who the author of the paper is from the subject, his writing style and (possibly) the amount of self-citations(!).
But one more hurdle to accepting a paper as a gold nugget just because it’s been crapped up (down) by Dr Eminent can’t hurt, can he?
I am personally in the middle of the final touches to my paper before submission – and I think that another good point of it is that reviewers who will happen to read it (if it gets accepted for review, that is) will not know my name so they will not black list me for future collaborations.
I am bored. I should correct my paper and get it finally submitted, but it’s stronger than me and can’t just decide whether to accept the corrections suggested by a co-author or not…
Scientific publications are so troublesome (at least for me) that I am almost tempted to give up on this career and pursuit a job in finance (lol, not really) or any other field where you are not required to write up your stuff. It’s not that I don’t want to share, I am more than happy of that and well willing to talk about my work. It’s just that I am very very bad at writing up, possibly because none of the endless literature courses during my school in Italy ever concentrated on the basic of good and understandable writing.
IYou can see it from how long the previous phrase was. In Italy long phrases, branching in two or three nested level get you a premium by the professor. Ow, all this sucks. I wish I was like many of my colleagues, with a much wider cultural span but much more ‘able’ to do the job… They’re like very sharp knives, good to cut steaks, whereas I am the jack of all knives (d`uh!) – with multiple skills but none up to an acceptable level.
Enough complaining. I’m leaving work early to discover the joys of having a Makro card – Then I will try to correct the paper in the evening at home, with the advantage of Word XP which lets you see the correction and the original at once…
It happens sometimes that the job done by a single scientist get published with more than his name on it. He’s usually the first author, except in Italy and other third world countries, where some professors pretend them to be on top. He’s relegated to second place, unless the professor above has a favorite pupil who needs a push to get/stay into the tenure track.
Anyway, this post is not about unjust usurpation of authorship at the hand of elder academics. It is rather on the careless co-authorships practiced in some research groups, where all those belonging share authorships to any papers so as to augment their paper count in their CVs. Bad, bad practice indeed, especially when they happen to admit candidly during an interview “Oh, no, I didn’t really know anything about that work, I was in the group so I got my name on it” – then why on earth did you insert it in your CV as relevant qualification, you dumb4$$?
I was shocked when a colleague recently said that after two years of work she had eight publications, plus countless posters and participations to meetings. needless to say, seven of those eight were of the aforementioned kind. And who on earth would care about which meetings and school you attended, unless you presented one at the first or were prized as best-in-class at the latters?
I try to put only first-author papers on my CV. which also implies it is desperately short. But at least I know I can defend that work with my claws, whereas if somebody is mifdly interested in me can always look up the other papers on pubmed or elsewhere and discover which fields I also happened to brush on. I probably know more than the average person in those, but don’t claim nor brag to being an expert about them.
Why am I doing this post, you may ask? Oh, because Nature just came out with a similar theme this weekend. With a wider view than mine, in fact, covering the responsibilities of co-authors on the scientific accuracy of the papers, real-world cases and so on. Go and read it, it’s certainly better than my rants anyway.
The new Nature is out, (since a couple of days, in fact) with a nice piece on the difficulties facing the development and approval of biomarkers-based cancer diagnostic assays.
Quickly, they work by taking a broad look at the proteins (or RNA, or else) expressed in your body at the moment, and compare them with similar sample in healthy and sick people. if the fingerprints (protein prints, or RNA-prints, or else-prints) match, then there’s a good chance that you may share the same medical condition.
Trouble is, these tests do not yet seem able to differentiate between different kind of cancer enough to be useful in suggesting a treatment. To do so, large, long, expensive clinical trials are necessary. And the companies that produce those diagnostics do not have that kind of money. Pharmaceutical companies do, and they also have some interest in this: with clear diagnoses and treatment indication,s their drugs could be given only to patients likely to responds. Of course, this means that they would sell more or less drugs than they currently do. It can go both ways.
However, there are good chances. If it is true that the UK government will soon require certainty of effect on drugs before re-imbursing them to the company, then such a test would act as a shield in those cases where the drug were not to work nonetheless. I guess a middle ground will have to be found, with the government accepting a certain rate of failure in the prediction of the treatment and therefore shouldering the price of ineffective drugs rather than unloading it onto an already unstable pharmaceutical complex. Whether you like them (us) or not, the world needs new medicine and that’s the most efficient way to create them.
The new Nature is out. I’ve stolen the time to my paper-writing to read the brief news, if not the real papers, but really can’t discuss them right now. Too damn busy…
Draft is due tomorrow and I am still adding data to the discussion and introductory session!!! Bad bad practice.
Anyway, nature you have to pay for, but you can get the Neglected Disease report for free. So, go and check it out.
I went to Lille, France, giving my first ever scientific presentation in front of a hiuge audience of three hundred plus medicinal chemists, slightly puzzled at my presence there.
I feel it may have gone better, not many questions were asked so may be I didn’t get my message through. Hopefully, next time will do better. The important thing is that the ice is broken, and I’ve shown to myself that I can stand up there.
Plus, most of the people met while there were quite interesting.
Second great thing, I finally have a date for my PhD Viva: the 6 or 7 of August I will be once again crossing the channel to reach Southampton, and defend my thesis in front of an internal examiner (not yet chosen) plus an industrial external (can’t disclose his name yet).
In the meanwhile, I am supposed to set straight my work record, by properly finishing the pKa prediction evaluation, and write up my Guinea-Pig CardioVascular paper.
lots of things to handle in so few weeks. we’ll see how I fare.
see you soon. Gotta go and mow the lawn, right now.
Remember Ranma 1/2? During my university year it was one of my favorite comic books. here’s the italian version of the anime opening theme.
So, why is this post tagged as science? Well, cause I was listening to Nature Podcast from 07/06/07 and heard that some scientist elucidated the reason why menthol tastes ‘cold’. Long story short, it (presumably binds and) activates a Na/Ca ion channel, present in our tongue but also in other sensory terminations (see menthol shower-gels), which is normally active only at temperatures below 28 degrees. Hence, the ‘cold’ sensation. Cool, ain’t it?
Why Ranma as title holder? well, cause for this character those termination were pretty important, since a bucket of cold water would transform him into a her (just like the song says). Now imagine if he had known this. May be now we would be able to cure his/her curse?
PS: the title says: Is it warm? Is it cold? It makes a difference! (from the italian theme song)
PPS: Incidentally, I’ve also worked on ion channels, during my previous year (expressed in the heart, though, not in the tongue) and will present my in silico models at Lille, France, this first week of july. See you there may be
I’ll be in Oxford between the 22nd and the 29th for a training/workshop on various computational chemistry techniques. Then, will enjoy two free days in London. As soon as I am back to Beerse, I will have to leave again for Lille, France, where I will present my CV work in a meeting.
big mess. corrected one table before realising what it did talk about. this can only mean that the section which contains the table isn’t clear about it.
