There are a lot of reasons not to attend Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. For one thing, it used to be Atlantic Baptist College, and today it still describes itself as "Atlantic Canada’s Leading Liberal Arts University Devoted to the Christian Faith". Its motto is "Christ is preeminent". Not surprisingly, it gets crappy ratings, with this place rating it 7748 out of 11,000 North American universities, and 91st out of 98 Canadian universities.
Now there's yet another reason: the people who run it are bigots who won't hire a gay person in a gay relationship.
Showing posts with label academia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label academia. Show all posts
Friday, June 01, 2012
Sunday, July 10, 2011
I Explain Academia to Thomas Cudworth
Over at Uncommon Descent, Thomas Cudworth asks why prominent evolutionary scientists did not attend the Evolution 2011 conference in Norman, Oklahoma this summer.
Actually, to say "asks" is far too generous. He's doesn't seem at all interested in the answer; he's clearly intent on denigrating evolution's defenders by implying their absence indicates something is rotten with their scientific credentials.
This is just a Swift Boat-style attack: if the record of your own side is completely deficient, attack the other side's. Sadly for Mr. Cudworth, it is the scientific credentials of prominent ID proponents that are not exactly stellar. For example, in this post I examined the citation record of William Dembski, and in this one, I examined the scientific output of David Berlinski. Mr. Cudworth might equally want to ask, why has William Dembski not presented his work at an AMS meeting? Why does his work receive so few citations?
Nevertheless, since he seems so completely unfamiliar with how academia works, I will try to answer Mr. Cudworth's question as if it were genuine.
First, scientists are typically funded by a variety of funding agencies, which help to pay the cost of you and your students to attend a conference. Once you add up airfare, conference registration fees (often $300-$600 or more), transportation to and from the airport and to and from the conference site, and hotel, attending a conference can easily cost $2000 -- more if the conference is on another continent. Eventually, it becomes more important for your students to go to conferences than for you to go - you don't really need to advance your career very much, and it's better that your students get some visibility. So, given limited financial resources, you might choose to send them instead.
Second, conferences take up time, and many of us teach 9 months of the year or more, meaning that it is not so easy to simply pick up and shuffle off to a conference while teaching. Scientists who engage in field work (like some paleontologists) might spend most of their free time in the field collecting, or in the lab, preparing and analyzing specimens.
The bottom line is that, for reasons of time and funding, the typical academic scientist might attend only one or two conferences a year. Of course, there are jet-setters that attend 5 or 10 or 20 conferences a year, and some people (for example, those at small teaching colleges who get little funding) might attend no conferences at all.
Now, given that many of us have to choose the one or two conferences in a year we want to go to, we have to choose carefully. Do we really want to attend a huge conference like Evolution 2011, with a thousand or more attendees, covering a wide area that might have only a small intersection with our competence? Or should we attend a small workshop with 30 or 40 participants that is tightly focussed on our current interests? In my field, I might want to attend (just to name a few) STOC, FOCS, STACS, ICALP, DLT, DCFS, MFCS, LATA, SIAMDM, SODA, CIAA, WORDS, and CanaDAM. Clearly this is impractical. I have to choose.
So why would someone like Kevin Padian choose to go to Evolution 2011 instead of another conference in his area, vertebrate paleontology? Answer: there's no obvious reason he would. I have no idea what meetings Padian goes to, but I'm sure he has the same kinds of constraints I do.
And, as you get older, you slow down. When I was younger, attending a conference was more fun. Now that jet lag impacts my sleeping, and my health isn't always perfect, attending a conference can sometimes be a chore. I don't know for sure how old Paul R. Gross is, but I think he was born in 1928, which would make him about 82. Heck, at age 82, I sure hope I'll still be alive and attending conferences, but I don't know for sure. In any event, I'm happy to put Prof. Gross's scientific record up against Behe, Jonathan Wells, and other ID advocates. Richard Dawkins, at age 70, is no spring chicken either.
My thesis adviser once told me that he only attends conferences where he is presenting a paper. That might be yet another reason why someone might not attend a conference: he or she has submitted his papers to conferences more tightly focussed on his area of interest. Robert Pennock seems to be more of a philosopher and cognitive scientist; he might choose to attend conferences like the "Midwest Cognitive Science Meeting" instead.
The bottom line is that it is extraordinarily foolish to attempt to infer something about someone's scientific competence by their non-attendance at a single professional conference; only someone unfamiliar with academic science would attempt to do so.
But let's not fool ourselves. Cudworth is not interested in the answer. He just wants to score rhetorical points. When he says, "In most scientific areas, non-experts don’t pretend to stand in for experts" and asks, "how many of the self-appointed defenders of Darwinian evolution have demonstrated competence, proved by research and publication, in the field of evolutionary biology?", he might just want consider the competence of his own side. Why are lawyers Phillip Johnson and Casey Luskin, and philosophers Stephen Meyer and David Berlinski, and journalists David Warren, Tom Bethell, and David Klinghoffer, and mathematician William Dembski, such loud and ignorant voices against evolution, when they are not biologists? Indeed, my impression is that the vast majority of creationists and ID supporters are not biologists. Certainly this is true for people like Denyse O'Leary, Angus Menuge, Robert Coons, Henry Morris, Walter Bradley, Richard Milton, just to name a few.
Mr. Cudworth, there's a giant mote in your own eye.
Addendum: Cudworth responds by digging himself into an even deeper hole.
Amazing: it's not just that these guys are ignorant and arrogant - they're proudly so.
Actually, to say "asks" is far too generous. He's doesn't seem at all interested in the answer; he's clearly intent on denigrating evolution's defenders by implying their absence indicates something is rotten with their scientific credentials.
This is just a Swift Boat-style attack: if the record of your own side is completely deficient, attack the other side's. Sadly for Mr. Cudworth, it is the scientific credentials of prominent ID proponents that are not exactly stellar. For example, in this post I examined the citation record of William Dembski, and in this one, I examined the scientific output of David Berlinski. Mr. Cudworth might equally want to ask, why has William Dembski not presented his work at an AMS meeting? Why does his work receive so few citations?
Nevertheless, since he seems so completely unfamiliar with how academia works, I will try to answer Mr. Cudworth's question as if it were genuine.
First, scientists are typically funded by a variety of funding agencies, which help to pay the cost of you and your students to attend a conference. Once you add up airfare, conference registration fees (often $300-$600 or more), transportation to and from the airport and to and from the conference site, and hotel, attending a conference can easily cost $2000 -- more if the conference is on another continent. Eventually, it becomes more important for your students to go to conferences than for you to go - you don't really need to advance your career very much, and it's better that your students get some visibility. So, given limited financial resources, you might choose to send them instead.
Second, conferences take up time, and many of us teach 9 months of the year or more, meaning that it is not so easy to simply pick up and shuffle off to a conference while teaching. Scientists who engage in field work (like some paleontologists) might spend most of their free time in the field collecting, or in the lab, preparing and analyzing specimens.
The bottom line is that, for reasons of time and funding, the typical academic scientist might attend only one or two conferences a year. Of course, there are jet-setters that attend 5 or 10 or 20 conferences a year, and some people (for example, those at small teaching colleges who get little funding) might attend no conferences at all.
Now, given that many of us have to choose the one or two conferences in a year we want to go to, we have to choose carefully. Do we really want to attend a huge conference like Evolution 2011, with a thousand or more attendees, covering a wide area that might have only a small intersection with our competence? Or should we attend a small workshop with 30 or 40 participants that is tightly focussed on our current interests? In my field, I might want to attend (just to name a few) STOC, FOCS, STACS, ICALP, DLT, DCFS, MFCS, LATA, SIAMDM, SODA, CIAA, WORDS, and CanaDAM. Clearly this is impractical. I have to choose.
So why would someone like Kevin Padian choose to go to Evolution 2011 instead of another conference in his area, vertebrate paleontology? Answer: there's no obvious reason he would. I have no idea what meetings Padian goes to, but I'm sure he has the same kinds of constraints I do.
And, as you get older, you slow down. When I was younger, attending a conference was more fun. Now that jet lag impacts my sleeping, and my health isn't always perfect, attending a conference can sometimes be a chore. I don't know for sure how old Paul R. Gross is, but I think he was born in 1928, which would make him about 82. Heck, at age 82, I sure hope I'll still be alive and attending conferences, but I don't know for sure. In any event, I'm happy to put Prof. Gross's scientific record up against Behe, Jonathan Wells, and other ID advocates. Richard Dawkins, at age 70, is no spring chicken either.
My thesis adviser once told me that he only attends conferences where he is presenting a paper. That might be yet another reason why someone might not attend a conference: he or she has submitted his papers to conferences more tightly focussed on his area of interest. Robert Pennock seems to be more of a philosopher and cognitive scientist; he might choose to attend conferences like the "Midwest Cognitive Science Meeting" instead.
The bottom line is that it is extraordinarily foolish to attempt to infer something about someone's scientific competence by their non-attendance at a single professional conference; only someone unfamiliar with academic science would attempt to do so.
But let's not fool ourselves. Cudworth is not interested in the answer. He just wants to score rhetorical points. When he says, "In most scientific areas, non-experts don’t pretend to stand in for experts" and asks, "how many of the self-appointed defenders of Darwinian evolution have demonstrated competence, proved by research and publication, in the field of evolutionary biology?", he might just want consider the competence of his own side. Why are lawyers Phillip Johnson and Casey Luskin, and philosophers Stephen Meyer and David Berlinski, and journalists David Warren, Tom Bethell, and David Klinghoffer, and mathematician William Dembski, such loud and ignorant voices against evolution, when they are not biologists? Indeed, my impression is that the vast majority of creationists and ID supporters are not biologists. Certainly this is true for people like Denyse O'Leary, Angus Menuge, Robert Coons, Henry Morris, Walter Bradley, Richard Milton, just to name a few.
Mr. Cudworth, there's a giant mote in your own eye.
Addendum: Cudworth responds by digging himself into an even deeper hole.
Amazing: it's not just that these guys are ignorant and arrogant - they're proudly so.
Friday, September 10, 2010
New Journal with Clunky Name
It seems every week I get an announcement for a new journal. This week it's Journal for Algebra and Number Theory Academia, which gets my nomination for the Clunkiest New Journal Title of 2010.
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
My Sabbatical is Over
My sabbatical is over and it's back to a teaching term. Classes start next week.
Here's what I'm doing today (with updates throughout the day):
5:30 AM Woke up, had breakfast, and started answering e-mail. Hey, the Phillies are in first place in their division! I worked on processing mail for the journal I edit, the Journal of Integer Sequences.
7:40 AM The kids are off to school - both of them are now in high school! (urk)
8:30 AM Arrived at work. I'll be teaching a multi-section course on algorithms. I'm teaching two sections, with 60 students each, and another instructor is teaching the third -- so there's a lot of coordination to do. I sent e-mail to the other instructor with some suggestions about the first two assignments. I found my book of notes and overhead slides from the last time I taught the course. Some things I can reuse, but other things I will revise.
8:50 AM Time for coffee! While I was gone, we got an espresso machine. I don't like the taste, though -- the coffee machine at Oberwolfach was much better. The one here at Waterloo makes coffee that's way too bitter for me.
9:00 AM Damn, the radio feed from WBUR is acting up, so listening to the news is painful. I switch to the BBC radio program "Newshour".
9:10 AM There's a really interesting article by Lionel Levine and Jim Propp in the latest issue of the Notices of the AMS, on sandpiles. I'll have to think about this stuff more when I get a chance.
9:16 AM Answered e-mail about upcoming information session on graduate study in CS.
9:28 AM Noga Alon is visiting Waterloo, so I sent him an e-mail message asking if he would have a few minutes today or tomorrow to discuss a problem.
9:30 AM Working on the first assignment for my algorithms course. It's not easy to create good, interesting problems about big-O notation. And I want problems whose solution isn't on the web! I had a good one last year but I don't want to reuse it.
10:15 AM Got a couple of problems written, but still looking for a really hard one. Time to go check my (physical) mailbox on the second floor. Most mail comes electronically these days, but still...
10:35 AM OK, I have a draft of the first problem set done. Not completely happy with it. Sent it off to the other instructor for his comments. Noga Alon says he'll be in soon. Now - time to answer some e-mail.
11:20 AM E-mail! It's the bane of my existence. I get lots of messages a day, and don't know what to do with all of them. Best is a message that requires little thought and demands an immediate response. Worst is somebody asking a question that I'm not quite sure how to answer. I don't answer and it gets buried, perhaps never to emerge again. My mailbox always has hundreds of messages and is slow to load. Wish I could get it better organized.
Eating lunch while working. I always get hungry around 11 AM and it's hard to resist eating lunch early.
11:50 AM A colleague from another country was denied a visa to visit Canada and present a paper at a conference. This is really outrageous. I've got an appointment with my MP next week to discuss this case. I'm printing out the documentation that the colleague sent me.
12:00 Noon There's a new version of the APL I use on my mac, APL X. Paid $160 Canadian for the update through paypal.
12:30 PM Spent the last half hour trying to submit a paper to Information Processing Letters. Gone are the days when you could submit a paper by e-mailing some files to the editor. Now you have to go through a web-based form where you attach files, etc. These nearly always are terrible, offering way too many options for some things and not enough for others. I've spent 30 minutes on it so far and am still not done.
12:45 PM Whew! Submission finally done.
12:50 PM Got passcode for new version of APL, and installed it. Seems to work OK.
1:00 PM A colleague once suggested trying to find examples of k-tuples of integers S where g0 (S) > g1 (S) > g2 (S), where gi (S) is the largest integer having exactly i representations as an N-linear combination of the elements of S. Ran my little APL program and found the example S = (40,46,59,61,92), where g0 = 373, g1 = 354, and g2 = 340. It would be interesting to show there are arbitrarily long descending chains like that. Do you need larger and larger k-tuples to get them?
1:20 PM Went down to the visitor's office to try to find Noga Alon, but didn't find him.
1:25 PM Worked on the algorithms course web page.
1:35 PM Off to the grad course info session to present information about my Winter 2011 course on formal languages.
1:55 PM Back from the course presentation.
2:00 PM Noga Alon kindly came by and we talked about the separating words problem. At the same time our local computer people came by and tried to figure out why Thunderbird has lots of problems with my mail. Chaos!
3:30 PM Department meeting - free cookies. We learned about a new draft policy on privacy at the university, which as currently drafted would have the unfortunate effect of preventing professors from archiving things like student project for more than one year. This would make writing recommendation letters difficult in many cases. I certainly hope this draft policy will be rewritten.
5:15 PM Department meeting's over, and we're done for the day.
Now you know what a typical non-teaching day is like.
Here's what I'm doing today (with updates throughout the day):
5:30 AM Woke up, had breakfast, and started answering e-mail. Hey, the Phillies are in first place in their division! I worked on processing mail for the journal I edit, the Journal of Integer Sequences.
7:40 AM The kids are off to school - both of them are now in high school! (urk)
8:30 AM Arrived at work. I'll be teaching a multi-section course on algorithms. I'm teaching two sections, with 60 students each, and another instructor is teaching the third -- so there's a lot of coordination to do. I sent e-mail to the other instructor with some suggestions about the first two assignments. I found my book of notes and overhead slides from the last time I taught the course. Some things I can reuse, but other things I will revise.
8:50 AM Time for coffee! While I was gone, we got an espresso machine. I don't like the taste, though -- the coffee machine at Oberwolfach was much better. The one here at Waterloo makes coffee that's way too bitter for me.
9:00 AM Damn, the radio feed from WBUR is acting up, so listening to the news is painful. I switch to the BBC radio program "Newshour".
9:10 AM There's a really interesting article by Lionel Levine and Jim Propp in the latest issue of the Notices of the AMS, on sandpiles. I'll have to think about this stuff more when I get a chance.
9:16 AM Answered e-mail about upcoming information session on graduate study in CS.
9:28 AM Noga Alon is visiting Waterloo, so I sent him an e-mail message asking if he would have a few minutes today or tomorrow to discuss a problem.
9:30 AM Working on the first assignment for my algorithms course. It's not easy to create good, interesting problems about big-O notation. And I want problems whose solution isn't on the web! I had a good one last year but I don't want to reuse it.
10:15 AM Got a couple of problems written, but still looking for a really hard one. Time to go check my (physical) mailbox on the second floor. Most mail comes electronically these days, but still...
10:35 AM OK, I have a draft of the first problem set done. Not completely happy with it. Sent it off to the other instructor for his comments. Noga Alon says he'll be in soon. Now - time to answer some e-mail.
11:20 AM E-mail! It's the bane of my existence. I get lots of messages a day, and don't know what to do with all of them. Best is a message that requires little thought and demands an immediate response. Worst is somebody asking a question that I'm not quite sure how to answer. I don't answer and it gets buried, perhaps never to emerge again. My mailbox always has hundreds of messages and is slow to load. Wish I could get it better organized.
Eating lunch while working. I always get hungry around 11 AM and it's hard to resist eating lunch early.
11:50 AM A colleague from another country was denied a visa to visit Canada and present a paper at a conference. This is really outrageous. I've got an appointment with my MP next week to discuss this case. I'm printing out the documentation that the colleague sent me.
12:00 Noon There's a new version of the APL I use on my mac, APL X. Paid $160 Canadian for the update through paypal.
12:30 PM Spent the last half hour trying to submit a paper to Information Processing Letters. Gone are the days when you could submit a paper by e-mailing some files to the editor. Now you have to go through a web-based form where you attach files, etc. These nearly always are terrible, offering way too many options for some things and not enough for others. I've spent 30 minutes on it so far and am still not done.
12:45 PM Whew! Submission finally done.
12:50 PM Got passcode for new version of APL, and installed it. Seems to work OK.
1:00 PM A colleague once suggested trying to find examples of k-tuples of integers S where g0 (S) > g1 (S) > g2 (S), where gi (S) is the largest integer having exactly i representations as an N-linear combination of the elements of S. Ran my little APL program and found the example S = (40,46,59,61,92), where g0 = 373, g1 = 354, and g2 = 340. It would be interesting to show there are arbitrarily long descending chains like that. Do you need larger and larger k-tuples to get them?
1:20 PM Went down to the visitor's office to try to find Noga Alon, but didn't find him.
1:25 PM Worked on the algorithms course web page.
1:35 PM Off to the grad course info session to present information about my Winter 2011 course on formal languages.
1:55 PM Back from the course presentation.
2:00 PM Noga Alon kindly came by and we talked about the separating words problem. At the same time our local computer people came by and tried to figure out why Thunderbird has lots of problems with my mail. Chaos!
3:30 PM Department meeting - free cookies. We learned about a new draft policy on privacy at the university, which as currently drafted would have the unfortunate effect of preventing professors from archiving things like student project for more than one year. This would make writing recommendation letters difficult in many cases. I certainly hope this draft policy will be rewritten.
5:15 PM Department meeting's over, and we're done for the day.
Now you know what a typical non-teaching day is like.
Friday, September 03, 2010
Doug Groothuis Bans Me
Wow, Doug Groothuis has banned me from his blog for writing the following, which he refused to publish:
I think this excerpt shows why, for non-Christians, C. S. Lewis's philosophy is regarded as deficient.
Lewis didn't know anything about evolution. He didn't understand that what he called "morality" is a fact about human evolution; that we are programmed by evolution and culture to regard certain behaviors of others as acceptable and other behaviors as less so. Once this is understood, Lewis's confusion simply vanishes.
He calls this "pugilistic, pugnacious, and pernicious propositions."
Students of Groothuis should be aware: he does not tolerate any kind of dissent. If I were you, I'd look for another teacher, one that respects the give-and-take necessary to acquire knowledge.
I think this excerpt shows why, for non-Christians, C. S. Lewis's philosophy is regarded as deficient.
Lewis didn't know anything about evolution. He didn't understand that what he called "morality" is a fact about human evolution; that we are programmed by evolution and culture to regard certain behaviors of others as acceptable and other behaviors as less so. Once this is understood, Lewis's confusion simply vanishes.
He calls this "pugilistic, pugnacious, and pernicious propositions."
Students of Groothuis should be aware: he does not tolerate any kind of dissent. If I were you, I'd look for another teacher, one that respects the give-and-take necessary to acquire knowledge.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Oberwolfach!
Oberwolfach!
For mathematicians, it's a little bit like Mecca for Muslims: everybody wants to go at least once in their lifetime.
I first heard about Oberwolfach when I was an undergraduate. My first significant paper had finally appeared in the Journal of Number Theory after a very long delay (that's another story), and I sent it off to some mathematicians I thought would be interested. One replied, "But I just heard Schinzel talk about this at Oberwolfach..." I had been scooped! During the long delay in publication, a Czech graduate student studying in Poland had found the same result. And what was Oberwolfach?
It's a research center and conference site. Nowadays there are several similar places, such as the Banff International Research Station and the Centre International de Rencontres Mathématiques, but Oberwolfach is the oldest and most famous. (There's a history of the place here.)
For those who are not familiar with what happens at a place like Oberwolfach, here's a brief account. For 50 out of 52 weeks of the year (the exceptions being Christmas and New Year's), the Institute is host to about 50 mathematicians who arrive from Germany, the rest of Europe, and around the world. Each Sunday, they typically arrive by train at either Hausach or Wolfach, two small towns in a river valley in mountainous southern Germany. From there they take a taxi to the Institute, which is located on a remote tree-covered hillside that's a good 5 km from the nearest town.
There are two main buildings. One houses the dormitory and cafeteria, the other the library and conference rooms. Oberwolfach provides three meals a day; at lunch and dinner there is assigned seating, which changes at each meal. The main work takes places Monday through Friday, and usually consists of some talks (we had about 4 hours each day) and working on problems in small groups (all the rest of the day and night). There are numerous coffee machines (Paul Erdős supposedly once said that "A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems", although it has also been attributed to Rényi), where espresso and café au lait can be had, gratis, at all hours. Drinks, both alcoholic and non, can be bought for very nominal prices. The picture below shows the result after a long night of drinking and mathematics.
The dormitory rooms are very spartan, with no decorations and no TV, radio, or phone. Although there is some wireless internet available in both buildings, most dormitory rooms do not have access. You're supposed to be talking to other mathematicians, not sitting in your room!
I was there for a "mini-workshop" on Combinatorics on Words. We had 17 participants, and there were two other workshops running concurrently. This differs from most weeks, which are typically devoted to a single theme and involve more participants.
Oberwolfach also offers other kinds of programs, such as "Research in Pairs", which allow two mathematicians from different institutions to meet and work together for a longer period.
The library is really outstanding. Unlike many libraries, they have not switched to electronic subscription, and they continue to receive paper copies of journals. It is a real pleasure to walk down the long aisle and pick up a journal to browse. Although I thought I knew the mathematical literature reasonably well, there were still some journals I had never heard of.
Oberwolfach also has a tradition of putting books written by participants on a special shelf in the library building. You can see my book displayed there below.
Another Oberwolfach tradition are the problem books. Any mathematician can provide an unsolved problem, or comment on a previous one, and there are dozens of problems by famous mathematicians like Erdős. Here's a page from the problems book with a problem by Mendès France:
On Saturday, all the mathematicians leave in taxis arranged by the Institute. And on Sunday the cycle begins again.
I had a really great experience there. There were some excellent talks by my colleagues, and I got a chance to discuss some open problems with them. We even solved one problem, and made some progress on others. I'm hoping to go again some day!
Monday, June 14, 2010
Great Moments in Reprint Requests
I just received the following letter:
Dear Professor Shallit,
I am a graduate student in XXX University majoring in YYY. I want to cite one of your papers that should be of great use to my current research. The title of the paper is "Randomized Algorithms in Number Theory", published on Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics 39 (1986), S1.
Because our library does not have access to the article, it should be best that you send me a copy via email.
I really appreciate your worthless help!
Now that's the way to ask for a reprint!
Dear Professor Shallit,
I am a graduate student in XXX University majoring in YYY. I want to cite one of your papers that should be of great use to my current research. The title of the paper is "Randomized Algorithms in Number Theory", published on Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics 39 (1986), S1.
Because our library does not have access to the article, it should be best that you send me a copy via email.
I really appreciate your worthless help!
Now that's the way to ask for a reprint!
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
An Academic Challenge
Today I saw the following poster at MIT:
This is the brainchild of the folks at phdchallenge.org. They want someone to get the phrase "I smoke crack rocks" into a scientific paper before December 1 of this year.
But someone at the challenge must have been smoking something, because in the FAQ, they say, "If your potential contest entry contains at least 90% of the words from challenge phrase, you may still submit it. For example, for the 2010 PhD Challenge, submissions containing the phrases I SMOKE CRACK and SMOKE CRACK ROCKS are valid and would be considered in the final judging." They seem to think that 75% is greater than or equal to 90%.
This is the brainchild of the folks at phdchallenge.org. They want someone to get the phrase "I smoke crack rocks" into a scientific paper before December 1 of this year.
But someone at the challenge must have been smoking something, because in the FAQ, they say, "If your potential contest entry contains at least 90% of the words from challenge phrase, you may still submit it. For example, for the 2010 PhD Challenge, submissions containing the phrases I SMOKE CRACK and SMOKE CRACK ROCKS are valid and would be considered in the final judging." They seem to think that 75% is greater than or equal to 90%.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Freedom of Expression: Canada vs. Texas
The president of Tarleton College in Texas has a stronger commitment to free speech than the vice-president of the University of Ottawa.
This is one of the worst things about living in Canada.
This is one of the worst things about living in Canada.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Don't Cite Works You Haven't Read
It's something you teach your graduate students: Don't cite works you haven't read.
It's a rule with good reasons behind it. First, it's a bad idea to rely on someone else's summary of another work. Maybe they summarized it incorrectly, or maybe there is more there you need to consider. Second, as a scholar, it's your obligation not to spread misinformation. Maybe the page numbers or the volume are given incorrectly.
Like all rules, there are occasional exceptions. Maybe it's a really old and obscure work that you've tried to get a copy of, but failed. In that case, you can cite the work but mention that you haven't actually been able to find a copy. (I've done this.) That way, at the least the reader will be warned that you're relying on someone else's citation.
And now, from Paris, comes a spectacular case of why citing works you haven't read is a bad idea. The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévi has been caught citing and praising, in his new book De la guerre en philosophie, the work of the philosopher "Jean-Baptiste Botul". Only problem? Botul doesn't actually exist. He is the creation of journalist Frédéric Pagès.
Now, maybe Lévy did actually read Botul's book La vie sexuelle d'Emmanuel Kant. But if so, despite the big warning signs (Botul's school is called "Botulism") he failed to recognize it as a big joke, which raises even more questions about his perspicacity.
Maybe I need to tell my graduate students another rule: Don't cite works that you suspect may be a hoax.
Oh, and for the record? I haven't read Lévi's new book, nor Pagès's satire.
It's a rule with good reasons behind it. First, it's a bad idea to rely on someone else's summary of another work. Maybe they summarized it incorrectly, or maybe there is more there you need to consider. Second, as a scholar, it's your obligation not to spread misinformation. Maybe the page numbers or the volume are given incorrectly.
Like all rules, there are occasional exceptions. Maybe it's a really old and obscure work that you've tried to get a copy of, but failed. In that case, you can cite the work but mention that you haven't actually been able to find a copy. (I've done this.) That way, at the least the reader will be warned that you're relying on someone else's citation.
And now, from Paris, comes a spectacular case of why citing works you haven't read is a bad idea. The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévi has been caught citing and praising, in his new book De la guerre en philosophie, the work of the philosopher "Jean-Baptiste Botul". Only problem? Botul doesn't actually exist. He is the creation of journalist Frédéric Pagès.
Now, maybe Lévy did actually read Botul's book La vie sexuelle d'Emmanuel Kant. But if so, despite the big warning signs (Botul's school is called "Botulism") he failed to recognize it as a big joke, which raises even more questions about his perspicacity.
Maybe I need to tell my graduate students another rule: Don't cite works that you suspect may be a hoax.
Oh, and for the record? I haven't read Lévi's new book, nor Pagès's satire.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Suzan Mazur - Perpetually Clueless
Suzan Mazur is the "journalist" who attended a meeting on evolution, misunderstood nearly everything that was going on, and has now cashed in on her misunderstanding by writing a book. Needless to say, the people who organized the meeting were not amused.
Now she's back, as clueless as ever, with an article at Counterpunch on peer-review.
She claims "Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini report colleagues attempted to silence them from publishing in their new book that Darwin's claim was wrong about natural selection." But somehow these attempts failed, since not only did Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini manage to publish their book, but they also got a long article in New Scientist about it. What was the nature of these "attempt[s] to silence them"? Mazur, the eminent journalist, doesn't tell us, but she does refer to "dark forces". (No, really!) For some amusement, read the comments in New Scientist on the article of Fodor and Piattelli-Palmirini. A rough estimate shows that about 90% of the comments are negative to their claims, pointing out that the article is misinformed and inaccurate.
I'd be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that these "attempt[s] to silence them" consisted of their friends telling them they would make laughingstocks of themselves if they proceeded to publish their half-baked ideas. And their friends were right.
Mazur asks, "Why not just thrash these ideas out in the open as in other professional fields[?]" But in fact, there is peer-review in all professional fields. Try to get an article published in a law review or an engineering journal while demanding it not be peer-reviewed, and see how well you do.
Clueless Mazur says, "I was curious how journal reviewers are paid...". Well, that just shows she knows absolutely nothing about peer-review. But her own ignorance of the system is not the fit subject for an article.
She then asks, "What then is the incentive? Why do these extremely busy scientists work as slaves?" but doesn't manage to find the answer. Here are the reasons:
1. Every field has a certain deontology. In science, you are, as a member of the community, expected to do things like review grant proposals, referee papers, and write letters for students and colleagues. Only very rarely do you get paid to do this. Those who don't pull their weight are essentially freeloaders on the system.
2. By refereeing papers, you (sometimes) get to see interesting ideas before publication. By making suggestions, you get to help shape the ideas and the presentation. Heck, if you have something worthwhile to say, sometimes you even get to be a co-author.
3. By refereeing papers, you get to learn what other people are working on. Sticking to your own ideas can sometimes be sterile.
4. When it comes time for your annual report to your department, showing that you are refereeing papers is a sign that your work is respected in the community.
5. Finally, I'll quote what Leonard Eugene Dickson said when asked why he spent 10 years of his career writing the 3-volume History of the Theory of Numbers: "it fitted with my conviction that every person should aim to perform at some time in his life some serious useful work for which it is highly improbable that there will be any reward whatever other than his satisfaction therefrom".
Mazur asks, "But could such journal board positions simply be fast-tracks to publication of an editor’s or an editorial board member’s own work and a tool for access to grant money?" No, to the first. It is considered a conflict of interest for a journal to allow an editor to handle his/her own paper. I edit a journal, the Journal of Integer Sequences, which would be a good venue for much of my own work. But none of my work is published in that journal. As for a "tool for access to grant money", whether someone referees papers or not is rarely or never considered in deciding whether to award a grant. Service on editorial boards may help you a little, but not as much as good work.
Mazur gives other stories about authors who've had trouble getting their paper published. She sees it as conspiracy or incompetence. But she fails to consider the most parsimonious explanation: papers usually get rejected because they are crap. I just got a paper rejected because I and my co-authors didn't know about some previous work, but you don't see me whining about it. Instead, we'll rewrite the paper and make it better.
Mazur seems to find it incomprehensible that a paper can get rejected within 36 hours. I edit a journal, so I know what they're like. I have rejected a paper even quicker. It is pretty easy to tell whether a paper is completely bogus or out of scope for my journal. When a paper gets rejected that quickly, it's a fair bet that one of those two reasons applies.
Too bad there wasn't some peer review for Mazur's own uninformed and silly article.
Now she's back, as clueless as ever, with an article at Counterpunch on peer-review.
She claims "Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini report colleagues attempted to silence them from publishing in their new book that Darwin's claim was wrong about natural selection." But somehow these attempts failed, since not only did Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini manage to publish their book, but they also got a long article in New Scientist about it. What was the nature of these "attempt[s] to silence them"? Mazur, the eminent journalist, doesn't tell us, but she does refer to "dark forces". (No, really!) For some amusement, read the comments in New Scientist on the article of Fodor and Piattelli-Palmirini. A rough estimate shows that about 90% of the comments are negative to their claims, pointing out that the article is misinformed and inaccurate.
I'd be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that these "attempt[s] to silence them" consisted of their friends telling them they would make laughingstocks of themselves if they proceeded to publish their half-baked ideas. And their friends were right.
Mazur asks, "Why not just thrash these ideas out in the open as in other professional fields[?]" But in fact, there is peer-review in all professional fields. Try to get an article published in a law review or an engineering journal while demanding it not be peer-reviewed, and see how well you do.
Clueless Mazur says, "I was curious how journal reviewers are paid...". Well, that just shows she knows absolutely nothing about peer-review. But her own ignorance of the system is not the fit subject for an article.
She then asks, "What then is the incentive? Why do these extremely busy scientists work as slaves?" but doesn't manage to find the answer. Here are the reasons:
1. Every field has a certain deontology. In science, you are, as a member of the community, expected to do things like review grant proposals, referee papers, and write letters for students and colleagues. Only very rarely do you get paid to do this. Those who don't pull their weight are essentially freeloaders on the system.
2. By refereeing papers, you (sometimes) get to see interesting ideas before publication. By making suggestions, you get to help shape the ideas and the presentation. Heck, if you have something worthwhile to say, sometimes you even get to be a co-author.
3. By refereeing papers, you get to learn what other people are working on. Sticking to your own ideas can sometimes be sterile.
4. When it comes time for your annual report to your department, showing that you are refereeing papers is a sign that your work is respected in the community.
5. Finally, I'll quote what Leonard Eugene Dickson said when asked why he spent 10 years of his career writing the 3-volume History of the Theory of Numbers: "it fitted with my conviction that every person should aim to perform at some time in his life some serious useful work for which it is highly improbable that there will be any reward whatever other than his satisfaction therefrom".
Mazur asks, "But could such journal board positions simply be fast-tracks to publication of an editor’s or an editorial board member’s own work and a tool for access to grant money?" No, to the first. It is considered a conflict of interest for a journal to allow an editor to handle his/her own paper. I edit a journal, the Journal of Integer Sequences, which would be a good venue for much of my own work. But none of my work is published in that journal. As for a "tool for access to grant money", whether someone referees papers or not is rarely or never considered in deciding whether to award a grant. Service on editorial boards may help you a little, but not as much as good work.
Mazur gives other stories about authors who've had trouble getting their paper published. She sees it as conspiracy or incompetence. But she fails to consider the most parsimonious explanation: papers usually get rejected because they are crap. I just got a paper rejected because I and my co-authors didn't know about some previous work, but you don't see me whining about it. Instead, we'll rewrite the paper and make it better.
Mazur seems to find it incomprehensible that a paper can get rejected within 36 hours. I edit a journal, so I know what they're like. I have rejected a paper even quicker. It is pretty easy to tell whether a paper is completely bogus or out of scope for my journal. When a paper gets rejected that quickly, it's a fair bet that one of those two reasons applies.
Too bad there wasn't some peer review for Mazur's own uninformed and silly article.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
When is a Request Inappropriate?
I get a lot of requests in e-mail from people in theoretical CS: requests to write letters of recommendation, to serve on thesis committees, to referee papers, to serve on grant evaluation committees, to read a paper that someone wrote and let them know what I think of it, etc. In this I am not unusual - probably many of my colleagues get even more requests than I do.
Occasionally, however, I get requests that I find inappropriate. One of them arrived today. A student from a developing country asked me to send him an electronic copy of a paper by Ginsburg and Spanier that appeared in SIAM Journal on Control in the 1960's.
Here's what I wrote back:
Let me explain to you - hopefully gently - why your request for me to provide you with a copy of an article that I cited in my book is an inappropriate one.
First, your university library probably has this journal.
Second, if they do not, academic libraries participate in something called "interlibrary loan" where they can get copies (usually for free) of articles in journals they do not have. You should try this next.
Third, although it's reasonable to contact an author and ask them for a copy of a paper they wrote, it's usually not reasonable to write to person A to get a copy of person B's paper. The exceptions might be 1) if person A and person B are co-authors; 2) if the paper appeared in an extremely obscure venue and is basically impossible to get. In that case, it might be a reasonable request, /but/ you would need to acknowledge that you would be wasting the other person's time and apologize in advance for doing so. Neither 1) nor 2) apply here.
Fourth, think about what would happen to me if everyone who read one of my books asked me to provide them with an article I cited. I would never get any work done!
I thank you again for your interest in my book, and I apologize for not being able to help you.
Was I wrong? Should I have spent the 10 minutes it would have taken to log on to the Waterloo library system, locate the article, download it, and send it to him?
Occasionally, however, I get requests that I find inappropriate. One of them arrived today. A student from a developing country asked me to send him an electronic copy of a paper by Ginsburg and Spanier that appeared in SIAM Journal on Control in the 1960's.
Here's what I wrote back:
Let me explain to you - hopefully gently - why your request for me to provide you with a copy of an article that I cited in my book is an inappropriate one.
First, your university library probably has this journal.
Second, if they do not, academic libraries participate in something called "interlibrary loan" where they can get copies (usually for free) of articles in journals they do not have. You should try this next.
Third, although it's reasonable to contact an author and ask them for a copy of a paper they wrote, it's usually not reasonable to write to person A to get a copy of person B's paper. The exceptions might be 1) if person A and person B are co-authors; 2) if the paper appeared in an extremely obscure venue and is basically impossible to get. In that case, it might be a reasonable request, /but/ you would need to acknowledge that you would be wasting the other person's time and apologize in advance for doing so. Neither 1) nor 2) apply here.
Fourth, think about what would happen to me if everyone who read one of my books asked me to provide them with an article I cited. I would never get any work done!
I thank you again for your interest in my book, and I apologize for not being able to help you.
Was I wrong? Should I have spent the 10 minutes it would have taken to log on to the Waterloo library system, locate the article, download it, and send it to him?
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Weirdest Request to Work With Me
I get a lot of requests from students who want to work with me - often Indian students who want to do "summer internships". But here is the weirdest one I've gotten so far:
I, A****** P*****, am a fourth year undergraduate student enrolled for the Dual Degree Course (5 year B.Tech + M.Tech) in the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, the leading engineering university of the country.
I am currently in pursuit of an internship/project for a period of 8 weeks during May 2010 to July 2010, which would be of help to me in gaining experience and required knowledge in the field of structural engineering.I have been regularly following your articles in the journal of Finite Elements in Analysis and Design. I have gone through your article Finite element formulation for geometric and material nonlinear analysis of beams prestressed with external slipping tendons which was intellectually very stimulating. I then checked your website and am happy to be genuinely excited about any fortunate opportunities of working under your esteemed guidance. I am very interested in the field of structural engineering and am in the idea of pursuing my doctoral degree in the same field.
Needless to say, I don't work in "structural engineering", and I never have published in Finite Elements in Analysis and Design.
I, A****** P*****, am a fourth year undergraduate student enrolled for the Dual Degree Course (5 year B.Tech + M.Tech) in the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, the leading engineering university of the country.
I am currently in pursuit of an internship/project for a period of 8 weeks during May 2010 to July 2010, which would be of help to me in gaining experience and required knowledge in the field of structural engineering.I have been regularly following your articles in the journal of Finite Elements in Analysis and Design. I have gone through your article Finite element formulation for geometric and material nonlinear analysis of beams prestressed with external slipping tendons which was intellectually very stimulating. I then checked your website and am happy to be genuinely excited about any fortunate opportunities of working under your esteemed guidance. I am very interested in the field of structural engineering and am in the idea of pursuing my doctoral degree in the same field.
Needless to say, I don't work in "structural engineering", and I never have published in Finite Elements in Analysis and Design.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Five Laws of Choosing Referees
For the last few years I've been editing a mathematical journal - the Journal of Integer Sequences, which is a true open-access journal. Neither authors nor readers are charged; it is completely free.
Much of my time is spent dealing with referees: choosing them, trying to get them to agree to referee a paper, reading their reports, and sending them to authors. Along the way, I've had a number of interesting experiences: like the time I kept pursuing a referee despite the fact that he was dead, and the referee who sent me a report on a completely different paper that I had not sent.
I think I now have enough data to list five laws of choosing referees:
1. In general, famous mathematicians make lousy referees. (Of course, there are exceptions.) Famous mathematicians have a lot of demands on their time, which means they probably won't even answer your request to referee a paper. If they do respond, they'll probably say no, because they're so busy doing important work. If they do accept, they'll probably take a long time. Because they're famous, they're probably really bright - much smarter than me and probably the author of the paper - so if they do write a report, it tends to be really short, snarky, and dismissive of the results.
2. Graduate students make good referees in one respect: they tend to read the paper really carefully, and are good at spotting sections where the argument is incorrect or unclear. But they rarely have the mastery of the literature needed to know if something is new or original.
3. If you have to ask a potential referee several times whether they're willing to referee a paper, then don't bother phoning them or making much more effort to contact them. If they're so disorganized and impolite that they refuse to tell you yes or no quickly, then they'll never produce a report.
4. Referees from Asia tend - generally speaking - to write extremely short reports that are rarely helpful. Whether this is a function of the culture, or whether they're embarrassed by their English skills, or something else, I don't know. In contrast, eastern Europeans generally write good and helpful reports, despite their lousy English skills.
5. The worst referees of all are the ones that agree to referee the paper and then keep stringing you along for month after month, each time claiming that they're almost done the report, and it will be coming shortly. I once wasted 9 months pursuing a referee who kept claiming it would be there next week. So if you can't get a report from the referee within a month of the time they originally promised, give up - and tell the referee why you're giving up on them.
Much of my time is spent dealing with referees: choosing them, trying to get them to agree to referee a paper, reading their reports, and sending them to authors. Along the way, I've had a number of interesting experiences: like the time I kept pursuing a referee despite the fact that he was dead, and the referee who sent me a report on a completely different paper that I had not sent.
I think I now have enough data to list five laws of choosing referees:
1. In general, famous mathematicians make lousy referees. (Of course, there are exceptions.) Famous mathematicians have a lot of demands on their time, which means they probably won't even answer your request to referee a paper. If they do respond, they'll probably say no, because they're so busy doing important work. If they do accept, they'll probably take a long time. Because they're famous, they're probably really bright - much smarter than me and probably the author of the paper - so if they do write a report, it tends to be really short, snarky, and dismissive of the results.
2. Graduate students make good referees in one respect: they tend to read the paper really carefully, and are good at spotting sections where the argument is incorrect or unclear. But they rarely have the mastery of the literature needed to know if something is new or original.
3. If you have to ask a potential referee several times whether they're willing to referee a paper, then don't bother phoning them or making much more effort to contact them. If they're so disorganized and impolite that they refuse to tell you yes or no quickly, then they'll never produce a report.
4. Referees from Asia tend - generally speaking - to write extremely short reports that are rarely helpful. Whether this is a function of the culture, or whether they're embarrassed by their English skills, or something else, I don't know. In contrast, eastern Europeans generally write good and helpful reports, despite their lousy English skills.
5. The worst referees of all are the ones that agree to referee the paper and then keep stringing you along for month after month, each time claiming that they're almost done the report, and it will be coming shortly. I once wasted 9 months pursuing a referee who kept claiming it would be there next week. So if you can't get a report from the referee within a month of the time they originally promised, give up - and tell the referee why you're giving up on them.
Monday, November 30, 2009
The Fruitlessness of ID "Research"
Scientists point out, quite rightly, that the religio-political charade known as "intelligent design" (ID) is not good science. But how do we know this?
One of the hallmarks of science is that it is fruitful. A good scientific paper will usually lead to much work along the same lines, work that confirms and extends the results, and work that produces more new ideas inspired by the paper. Although citation counts are not completely reliable metrics for evaluating scientific papers, they do give some general information about what papers are considered important.
ID advocates like to point to lists of "peer-reviewed publications" advocating their position. Upon closer examination, their lists are misleading, packed with publications that are either not in scientific journals, or that appeared in venues of questionable quality, or papers whose relationship to ID is tangential at best. Today, however, I'd like to look at a different issue: the fruitfulness of intelligent design. Let's take a particular ID publication, one that was trumpeted by ID advocates as a "breakthrough", and see how much further scientific work it inspired.
The paper I have in mind is Stephen Meyer's paper “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories”, which was published, amid some controversy, in the relatively obscure journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington in 2004. Critics pointed out that the paper was not suited to the journal, which is usually devoted to taxonomic issues, and that the paper was riddled with mistakes and misleading claims. In response, the editors of the journal issued a disclaimer repudiating the paper.
Putting these considerations aside, what I want to do here is look at every scientific publication that has cited Meyer's paper to determine whether his work can fairly said to be "fruitful". I used the ISI Web of Science Database to do a "cited reference" search on his article. This database, which used to be called Science Citation Index, is generally acknowledged to be one of the most comprehensive available. The search I did included Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Even such a search will miss some papers, of course, but it will still give a general idea of how much the scientific community has been inspired by Meyer's work.
I found exactly 9 citations to Meyer's paper in this database. Of these, counting generously, exactly 1 is a scientific research paper that cites Meyer approvingly.
By contrast, let's compare Meyer's work with another paper, in the same field, of roughly the same length, and published in the same year:
W. G. Joyce, J. F. Parham, and J. A. Gauthier, "Developing a protocol for the conversion of rank-based taxon names to phylogenetically defined clade names, as exemplified by turtles", Journal of Paleontology 78 (5) (2004), 989-1013.
This paper has been cited 60 times since 2004, according to ISI Web of Science, by researchers writing in journals such as Systematic Biology, Journal of Anatomy, Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France, Proceedings of the Royal Society B - Biological Sciences, Journal of Morphology, Zootaxa, Journal of Ornithology, Naturwissenschaften, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, etc., etc. Clearly there is a substantial difference in opinion of this paper, versus Meyer's.
Now let's look at all 9 papers that have cited Meyer's work, as reported by ISI Web of Science. I have read every paper, except paper 4 (Luskin); for that paper I had to be content with an abstract.
1. J. Giles, "Peer-reviewed paper defends theory of intelligent design", Nature 431 (7005) (Sept 9 2004), 114. A one-column news article in the news section of Nature about the publication of Meyer's paper. Not a scientific research paper.
2. K. M. Helgen, "Meyer paper: don't hang the Soc. Wash. out to dry", Nature 432 (7020) (Dec 23 2004), 949. A letter to the editor defending the reputation of the journal that published Meyer's article. Money quote: "Given the Proceedings’ taxonomic focus, Meyer’s ID paper is clearly out of place. Its publication represents a lapse of the journal’s usual editorial policies, and has been swiftly repudiated (www.biolsocwash.org). However, although the publication of Meyer’s paper is lamentable, it need not be used to trivialize the Proceedings’ long, respectable and ongoing tradition of cataloguing global biodiversity." Not a scientific research paper.
3. Mark Terry, "One nation, under the designer", Phi Delta Kappan 86 (4) (Dec 2004), 264. Abstract. Full paper (subscription required). This journal is a professional journal for educators. The paper's subtitle reads, "Mr. Terry alerts readers to a new, more insidious anti-evolutionist strategy. And the redefinition of science is only the first step." Meyer's paper is discussed, as follows: "The supposed "scientific revolution" is a creation of public relations. A science teacher cannot go to any major science journal or scientific organization and find out about all this new research - because there is none. In the fall of 2004 an ID article by a Discovery Institute Fellow appeared in the Proceedings of the Biological Association of Washington, a venerable but formerly obscure journal dealing with subtle taxonomic issues. The flurry of responses to the article gives a good picture of the current state of ID as science: the governing council of the journal almost immediately disavowed the article's publication." Not a scientific research paper.
4. C. Luskin, "Alternative viewpoints about biological origins as taught in public schools, Journal of Church and State 47 (3) (Summer 2005), 583-617. First page. A journal of law and social science. Luskin is "Program Officer in Public Policy and Legal Affairs" at the Discovery Institute. Not a scientific research paper.
5. B. H. Weber, "Emergence of life", Zygon 42 (4) (Dec 2007), 837-856. Zygon is self-described as a journal of "religion and science", but I would consider it a philosophy journal. A review article. Of the nine papers, this is the one that is the closest to a scientific research article that cites Meyer approvingly: "The emergence and increase of novel, specified, functional information remains the crucial issue." He thinks that Meyer's questions have been answered by "the new science of emergent complexity".
6. J. Koperski, "Two bad ways to attack intelligent design and two good ones", Zygon 43 (2) (June 2008), 433-449. Again, Zygon is self-described as a journal of "religion and science", but I would consider it a philosophy journal. This article focuses on the rhetoric of intelligent design and its opponents. Not a scientific research paper.
7. Emilia Currás and Enrique Wulff Barreiro, "Integration in Europe of human genetics results obtained by Spaniards in the USA: A historical perspective", Scientometrics 75 (3) (2008), 473-493. This is the strangest paper of the nine. It purports to be about "the mobility of Spanish biochemists from Europe to the United States over the past 80 years". It cites Meyer as follows: "In the context of cancer research, the (chemical and reductionist) search for the molecular basis of cancer induction is combined with the holistic vision of the close relationship between form and function in physiology [Shimkin, 1974; Meyer, 2004; Marra & Boland, 1995]". Although it is about "form", Meyer's paper doesn't mention "cancer" or "physiology" at all. Perhaps the citation was really meant to refer to something completely different? In any event, this paper is more a historical discussion, not a scientific research paper.
8. S. L. Shafer, "Critical thinking in anesthesia: Eighth honorary FAER research lecture", Anesthesiology 110 (4) (2009), 729-737. Full paper here. An article criticizing various anti-scientific trends. Here is how he cites Meyer: "One can find many Web sites devoted to intelligent design. However, the story in the peer-reviewed literature is quite different. Of 99 articles identified by a PubMed search of intelligent design (on November 14, 2008), the majority are defenses of evolution against claims of intelligent design. Not appearing in the search is the single scientific article supporting the claims of intelligent design written by Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute. This article was published without peer review in a nonindexed journal and was subsequently retracted by the journal for insufficient scientific merit." Not a scientific research paper. [Update: Shafer's claim about "published without peer review" is not correct, and the paper was not actually formally "retracted". "Disavowed" is more like it.]
9. Juan E. Carreño, Fernando Hansen, et al., Some considerations about the theory of intelligent design, Biological Research 42 (2) (2009), 223-232. Full paper here. An article, critical of intelligent design, in an obscure Chilean biology journal. However, the topic is more about philosophy than science. Money quote: "We also reject the claim that ID is a legitimate scientific theory, because it does not exhibit the classical characteristics that a scientific kind of knowledge must have." Not a scientific research paper that cites Meyer approvingly.
The grand total: exactly 1 paper (Weber's) can be said to be a scientific paper that cites Meyer approvingly, and even that is subject to debate.* This meager record does not support the claim that ID is a scientific revolution with far-reaching consequences.
ID advocates are constantly telling us that intelligent design is a new scientific paradigm that will prove fruitful. Five years after ID's flagship "peer-reviewed" paper, that does not seem to be the truth.
* No doubt ID advocates will produce other papers, published in obscure venues, that cite Meyer, that I missed. For example, Google scholar lists a few more, including:
10. Fernando Castro-Chávez, "Hepatology Microarrays, antiobesity and the liver", Annals of Hepatology 3 (4) (Oct-Dec 2004), 137-145. Full paper here. A case of inappropriate citation. The only citation to Meyer comes in the final paragraph, which reads "... to better describe the identity and function of genes and genomes, composers of a natural, complex, and precise biological software that as a genetic program, contributes to the healthy programming and the pathological reprogramming of life." The author appears to be an intelligent design advocate. I predict that inappropriate citation -- the bogus insertion of citations to pro-ID papers in irrelevant contexts -- will become more popular in the future, as creationists attempt to bolster their case that ID is scientific.
11. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, "Mutation breeding, evolution, and the law of recurrent variation", Recent Res. Devel. Genet. Breeding, 2 (2005), 45-70. Full paper here. Lönnig is a well-known creationist. The only references to Meyer appear on pages 61 and 64: "Thus, in accord with the laws of probability, examples and cases relativizing the law of recurrent variation have not been observed so far (35, 43, 46, 65, 77, 78, 88, 95, see also note 2)." and "For an additional detailed discussion of further points and possible
objections, see (see 1-9, 15, 20, 21, 23, 27, 30, 35, 38, 39, 43-57, 61, 65, 77-80, 86, 88, 90, 91, 94, 95)".
But ISI Web of Science also misses a number of articles critical of Meyer. In any event, the citations I have found do not support the extravagant claims made for ID and for Meyer's article. So far, ID is not proving frutiful for science.
One of the hallmarks of science is that it is fruitful. A good scientific paper will usually lead to much work along the same lines, work that confirms and extends the results, and work that produces more new ideas inspired by the paper. Although citation counts are not completely reliable metrics for evaluating scientific papers, they do give some general information about what papers are considered important.
ID advocates like to point to lists of "peer-reviewed publications" advocating their position. Upon closer examination, their lists are misleading, packed with publications that are either not in scientific journals, or that appeared in venues of questionable quality, or papers whose relationship to ID is tangential at best. Today, however, I'd like to look at a different issue: the fruitfulness of intelligent design. Let's take a particular ID publication, one that was trumpeted by ID advocates as a "breakthrough", and see how much further scientific work it inspired.
The paper I have in mind is Stephen Meyer's paper “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories”, which was published, amid some controversy, in the relatively obscure journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington in 2004. Critics pointed out that the paper was not suited to the journal, which is usually devoted to taxonomic issues, and that the paper was riddled with mistakes and misleading claims. In response, the editors of the journal issued a disclaimer repudiating the paper.
Putting these considerations aside, what I want to do here is look at every scientific publication that has cited Meyer's paper to determine whether his work can fairly said to be "fruitful". I used the ISI Web of Science Database to do a "cited reference" search on his article. This database, which used to be called Science Citation Index, is generally acknowledged to be one of the most comprehensive available. The search I did included Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Even such a search will miss some papers, of course, but it will still give a general idea of how much the scientific community has been inspired by Meyer's work.
I found exactly 9 citations to Meyer's paper in this database. Of these, counting generously, exactly 1 is a scientific research paper that cites Meyer approvingly.
By contrast, let's compare Meyer's work with another paper, in the same field, of roughly the same length, and published in the same year:
W. G. Joyce, J. F. Parham, and J. A. Gauthier, "Developing a protocol for the conversion of rank-based taxon names to phylogenetically defined clade names, as exemplified by turtles", Journal of Paleontology 78 (5) (2004), 989-1013.
This paper has been cited 60 times since 2004, according to ISI Web of Science, by researchers writing in journals such as Systematic Biology, Journal of Anatomy, Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France, Proceedings of the Royal Society B - Biological Sciences, Journal of Morphology, Zootaxa, Journal of Ornithology, Naturwissenschaften, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, etc., etc. Clearly there is a substantial difference in opinion of this paper, versus Meyer's.
Now let's look at all 9 papers that have cited Meyer's work, as reported by ISI Web of Science. I have read every paper, except paper 4 (Luskin); for that paper I had to be content with an abstract.
1. J. Giles, "Peer-reviewed paper defends theory of intelligent design", Nature 431 (7005) (Sept 9 2004), 114. A one-column news article in the news section of Nature about the publication of Meyer's paper. Not a scientific research paper.
2. K. M. Helgen, "Meyer paper: don't hang the Soc. Wash. out to dry", Nature 432 (7020) (Dec 23 2004), 949. A letter to the editor defending the reputation of the journal that published Meyer's article. Money quote: "Given the Proceedings’ taxonomic focus, Meyer’s ID paper is clearly out of place. Its publication represents a lapse of the journal’s usual editorial policies, and has been swiftly repudiated (www.biolsocwash.org). However, although the publication of Meyer’s paper is lamentable, it need not be used to trivialize the Proceedings’ long, respectable and ongoing tradition of cataloguing global biodiversity." Not a scientific research paper.
3. Mark Terry, "One nation, under the designer", Phi Delta Kappan 86 (4) (Dec 2004), 264. Abstract. Full paper (subscription required). This journal is a professional journal for educators. The paper's subtitle reads, "Mr. Terry alerts readers to a new, more insidious anti-evolutionist strategy. And the redefinition of science is only the first step." Meyer's paper is discussed, as follows: "The supposed "scientific revolution" is a creation of public relations. A science teacher cannot go to any major science journal or scientific organization and find out about all this new research - because there is none. In the fall of 2004 an ID article by a Discovery Institute Fellow appeared in the Proceedings of the Biological Association of Washington, a venerable but formerly obscure journal dealing with subtle taxonomic issues. The flurry of responses to the article gives a good picture of the current state of ID as science: the governing council of the journal almost immediately disavowed the article's publication." Not a scientific research paper.
4. C. Luskin, "Alternative viewpoints about biological origins as taught in public schools, Journal of Church and State 47 (3) (Summer 2005), 583-617. First page. A journal of law and social science. Luskin is "Program Officer in Public Policy and Legal Affairs" at the Discovery Institute. Not a scientific research paper.
5. B. H. Weber, "Emergence of life", Zygon 42 (4) (Dec 2007), 837-856. Zygon is self-described as a journal of "religion and science", but I would consider it a philosophy journal. A review article. Of the nine papers, this is the one that is the closest to a scientific research article that cites Meyer approvingly: "The emergence and increase of novel, specified, functional information remains the crucial issue." He thinks that Meyer's questions have been answered by "the new science of emergent complexity".
6. J. Koperski, "Two bad ways to attack intelligent design and two good ones", Zygon 43 (2) (June 2008), 433-449. Again, Zygon is self-described as a journal of "religion and science", but I would consider it a philosophy journal. This article focuses on the rhetoric of intelligent design and its opponents. Not a scientific research paper.
7. Emilia Currás and Enrique Wulff Barreiro, "Integration in Europe of human genetics results obtained by Spaniards in the USA: A historical perspective", Scientometrics 75 (3) (2008), 473-493. This is the strangest paper of the nine. It purports to be about "the mobility of Spanish biochemists from Europe to the United States over the past 80 years". It cites Meyer as follows: "In the context of cancer research, the (chemical and reductionist) search for the molecular basis of cancer induction is combined with the holistic vision of the close relationship between form and function in physiology [Shimkin, 1974; Meyer, 2004; Marra & Boland, 1995]". Although it is about "form", Meyer's paper doesn't mention "cancer" or "physiology" at all. Perhaps the citation was really meant to refer to something completely different? In any event, this paper is more a historical discussion, not a scientific research paper.
8. S. L. Shafer, "Critical thinking in anesthesia: Eighth honorary FAER research lecture", Anesthesiology 110 (4) (2009), 729-737. Full paper here. An article criticizing various anti-scientific trends. Here is how he cites Meyer: "One can find many Web sites devoted to intelligent design. However, the story in the peer-reviewed literature is quite different. Of 99 articles identified by a PubMed search of intelligent design (on November 14, 2008), the majority are defenses of evolution against claims of intelligent design. Not appearing in the search is the single scientific article supporting the claims of intelligent design written by Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute. This article was published without peer review in a nonindexed journal and was subsequently retracted by the journal for insufficient scientific merit." Not a scientific research paper. [Update: Shafer's claim about "published without peer review" is not correct, and the paper was not actually formally "retracted". "Disavowed" is more like it.]
9. Juan E. Carreño, Fernando Hansen, et al., Some considerations about the theory of intelligent design, Biological Research 42 (2) (2009), 223-232. Full paper here. An article, critical of intelligent design, in an obscure Chilean biology journal. However, the topic is more about philosophy than science. Money quote: "We also reject the claim that ID is a legitimate scientific theory, because it does not exhibit the classical characteristics that a scientific kind of knowledge must have." Not a scientific research paper that cites Meyer approvingly.
The grand total: exactly 1 paper (Weber's) can be said to be a scientific paper that cites Meyer approvingly, and even that is subject to debate.* This meager record does not support the claim that ID is a scientific revolution with far-reaching consequences.
ID advocates are constantly telling us that intelligent design is a new scientific paradigm that will prove fruitful. Five years after ID's flagship "peer-reviewed" paper, that does not seem to be the truth.
* No doubt ID advocates will produce other papers, published in obscure venues, that cite Meyer, that I missed. For example, Google scholar lists a few more, including:
10. Fernando Castro-Chávez, "Hepatology Microarrays, antiobesity and the liver", Annals of Hepatology 3 (4) (Oct-Dec 2004), 137-145. Full paper here. A case of inappropriate citation. The only citation to Meyer comes in the final paragraph, which reads "... to better describe the identity and function of genes and genomes, composers of a natural, complex, and precise biological software that as a genetic program, contributes to the healthy programming and the pathological reprogramming of life." The author appears to be an intelligent design advocate. I predict that inappropriate citation -- the bogus insertion of citations to pro-ID papers in irrelevant contexts -- will become more popular in the future, as creationists attempt to bolster their case that ID is scientific.
11. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, "Mutation breeding, evolution, and the law of recurrent variation", Recent Res. Devel. Genet. Breeding, 2 (2005), 45-70. Full paper here. Lönnig is a well-known creationist. The only references to Meyer appear on pages 61 and 64: "Thus, in accord with the laws of probability, examples and cases relativizing the law of recurrent variation have not been observed so far (35, 43, 46, 65, 77, 78, 88, 95, see also note 2)." and "For an additional detailed discussion of further points and possible
objections, see (see 1-9, 15, 20, 21, 23, 27, 30, 35, 38, 39, 43-57, 61, 65, 77-80, 86, 88, 90, 91, 94, 95)".
But ISI Web of Science also misses a number of articles critical of Meyer. In any event, the citations I have found do not support the extravagant claims made for ID and for Meyer's article. So far, ID is not proving frutiful for science.
Friday, November 06, 2009
Journal Editor in Libel Suit
According to this article in the Press-Gazette, Mohamed El Naschie, former editor of the journal Chaos, Solitons, and Fractals is suing Nature because of a November 2008 article. That article, written by Quirin Schiermeier, raised the issue of the very large number of papers authored by El Naschie and published in that journal CSF, and the quality of those papers.
I don't think El Naschie has a case, but who knows in Britain, where libel laws are insane?
I don't think El Naschie has a case, but who knows in Britain, where libel laws are insane?
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
On Sabbatical
Well, most of the boxes are unpacked, and we're working on getting the kids registered for school. I have an office (sort of) and we've found a local place for bagels. My sabbatical has begun!
I'm looking forward to a year of working on papers and book projects, learning new things, and catching up on work that has been postponed for too long.
Where are we? Well, the picture is a hint. I'll give another hint tomorrow.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Greedy Publishers Love Open Access
In the "open access" model of scholarly journal publishing, articles are freely available online for anyone to read. Sounds great, right?
There's a problem, though. Where does the money come from to provide editorial staff and web hosting? Typically, it comes from fees charged to authors. This is nothing new - some scholarly journals have had "page charges" for years. Authors are charged a fee on the size of the article, and this fee is usually paid for by your university or your research grant, if you are luck enough to have one.
Print journals have traditionally waived page charges for authors with no grant or authors from third world countries. Unfortunately, some greedy publishers have not chosen to issue the same kinds of waivers for their open access journals.
Scholarly Research Exchange is one such greedy publisher. They recently sent me a solicitation to submit articles to their journal SRX Mathematics. When I asked the "journal publishing editor", Michael Fayez, what their waiver policy is, he replied "SRX Mathematics totally depends on those mandatory charges to run the journal. So, I regret to inform you that we cannot grant waivers." Considering that their fee is $400 per article, which is more than most people in 3rd world countries make in a year, their policy ensures that only papers from rich countries will be included. That's a shame.
I won't be submitting to this journal.
There's a problem, though. Where does the money come from to provide editorial staff and web hosting? Typically, it comes from fees charged to authors. This is nothing new - some scholarly journals have had "page charges" for years. Authors are charged a fee on the size of the article, and this fee is usually paid for by your university or your research grant, if you are luck enough to have one.
Print journals have traditionally waived page charges for authors with no grant or authors from third world countries. Unfortunately, some greedy publishers have not chosen to issue the same kinds of waivers for their open access journals.
Scholarly Research Exchange is one such greedy publisher. They recently sent me a solicitation to submit articles to their journal SRX Mathematics. When I asked the "journal publishing editor", Michael Fayez, what their waiver policy is, he replied "SRX Mathematics totally depends on those mandatory charges to run the journal. So, I regret to inform you that we cannot grant waivers." Considering that their fee is $400 per article, which is more than most people in 3rd world countries make in a year, their policy ensures that only papers from rich countries will be included. That's a shame.
I won't be submitting to this journal.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Academic Publisher Elsevier Looking for More Revenue in Odd Places
Academic publisher Elsevier, not content with raking in the money from all the expensive academic journals they print, is now following in the footsteps of illustrious organizations such as the American Biographical Institute: when your article gets published, they are offering wooden plaques celebrating the glorious occasion.
I recently got the following e-mail from Elsevier:
New! To commemorate your publication, you can now order printed author copies of the journal issue featuring your article, a unique Certificate of Publication, and/or customized full-color posters featuring your article. Please visit https://authororders.elsevier.com/
to learn more.
And indeed, you can find there a wide variety of choices to "commemorate" your publication, including:
- copy of the journal issue in which your article appears;
- "A customized full-color poster commemorating the publication of your article, featuring the article first page and a personalized reference."
- a "Certificate of Publication" which is "delivered ready to display in a high-quality frame, dark brown wood with gold trim."
- "A full-color, 16.5" x 23.4" sized poster of the cover of the issue in which your article appears, displaying a personalized reference to your publication."
Way to be classy, Elsevier!
I recently got the following e-mail from Elsevier:
New! To commemorate your publication, you can now order printed author copies of the journal issue featuring your article, a unique Certificate of Publication, and/or customized full-color posters featuring your article. Please visit https://authororders.elsevier.com/
to learn more.
And indeed, you can find there a wide variety of choices to "commemorate" your publication, including:
- copy of the journal issue in which your article appears;
- "A customized full-color poster commemorating the publication of your article, featuring the article first page and a personalized reference."
- a "Certificate of Publication" which is "delivered ready to display in a high-quality frame, dark brown wood with gold trim."
- "A full-color, 16.5" x 23.4" sized poster of the cover of the issue in which your article appears, displaying a personalized reference to your publication."
Way to be classy, Elsevier!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Another Academic Scam
Every month or so I get a solicitation in the mail like the following one:
Dear Author
Hello?
As a general chair of GESTS, I am happy to invite you for the acceptance of yourpaper to be published in the GESTS International Transactions.
The GESTS is a nonprofit academic society organized by voluntary members aroundthe world since 2002. Every month, we publish the GESTS international transactionswhich are the regular paper journals on CSE and CSP, written by noble authors in more than 50 different countries.
This e-mail has been sent only to the authors who chose as a high quality paper that had been accepted as one of two parts of GESTS international transactions as follows:
-Part 1:
Paper Number : CSE775-727
Paper Journal: GESTS International Transactions on Computer Science and Engineering
Paper Field : Computer and Its Application
Volume Number: Vol.54 and No.3
ISSN Number : 1738-6438
Publication date: July 30, 2009.
Journal Type : hard copy with a green color cover
Online Journals: publication on the web in parallel to the printed journals.
-Part 2:
Paper Number : CSP775-112
Journal Title: GESTS International Transactions on Communication and Signal Processing
Paper Fields : Information Communication Engineering, Signal Processing, Image and Video Processing, Acoustics, etc.
Volume Number: Vol.13 and No.7
ISSN Number : 1738-9682
Issue Date : July 30, 2009.
Journal Type : hard copy with an orange color cover
On-line Issue: publication on the web in parallel to the printed journals.
Please, click the mouse on the "Major Conference Author's Paper Submission" at the home page, http://www.gests.org/. If the paper will be submitted through the web page, we will e-mail back with the details of how to proceed the submission of registration fees and copyright format.
Important dates for publication of the GESTS international transactions are :
- an improved paper and copyright format by July 27, 2009, ( http://www.gests.org/gests-full.rtf )
- the acceptance notification within ten days receiving your paper,
- the registration format with fees by July 30, 2009,
- the publication of GESTS International journal by July 30, 2009,
- and delivery start from GESTS to authors by August 10, 2009.
If you have a new paper or an improved version to be issued in GESTS international transactions, please, send us the final camera-ready version by July 27, 2009. At least one author of each paper must be accomplished with the registration.
We are looking forward to see your contributions at GESTS.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Bruce M. Bae, a general chair of GESTS,
http://www.gests.org/
I particularly like the "noble authors" part -- not to be confused with authors who have won the Nobel prize, of course.
The idea is, of course, that you submit your paper to this journal that nobody reads and then they charge you "registration fees". You'd have to be pretty dumb to fall for this one.
Dear Author
Hello?
As a general chair of GESTS, I am happy to invite you for the acceptance of yourpaper to be published in the GESTS International Transactions.
The GESTS is a nonprofit academic society organized by voluntary members aroundthe world since 2002. Every month, we publish the GESTS international transactionswhich are the regular paper journals on CSE and CSP, written by noble authors in more than 50 different countries.
This e-mail has been sent only to the authors who chose as a high quality paper that had been accepted as one of two parts of GESTS international transactions as follows:
-Part 1:
Paper Number : CSE775-727
Paper Journal: GESTS International Transactions on Computer Science and Engineering
Paper Field : Computer and Its Application
Volume Number: Vol.54 and No.3
ISSN Number : 1738-6438
Publication date: July 30, 2009.
Journal Type : hard copy with a green color cover
Online Journals: publication on the web in parallel to the printed journals.
-Part 2:
Paper Number : CSP775-112
Journal Title: GESTS International Transactions on Communication and Signal Processing
Paper Fields : Information Communication Engineering, Signal Processing, Image and Video Processing, Acoustics, etc.
Volume Number: Vol.13 and No.7
ISSN Number : 1738-9682
Issue Date : July 30, 2009.
Journal Type : hard copy with an orange color cover
On-line Issue: publication on the web in parallel to the printed journals.
Please, click the mouse on the "Major Conference Author's Paper Submission" at the home page, http://www.gests.org/. If the paper will be submitted through the web page, we will e-mail back with the details of how to proceed the submission of registration fees and copyright format.
Important dates for publication of the GESTS international transactions are :
- an improved paper and copyright format by July 27, 2009, ( http://www.gests.org/gests-full.rtf )
- the acceptance notification within ten days receiving your paper,
- the registration format with fees by July 30, 2009,
- the publication of GESTS International journal by July 30, 2009,
- and delivery start from GESTS to authors by August 10, 2009.
If you have a new paper or an improved version to be issued in GESTS international transactions, please, send us the final camera-ready version by July 27, 2009. At least one author of each paper must be accomplished with the registration.
We are looking forward to see your contributions at GESTS.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Bruce M. Bae, a general chair of GESTS,
http://www.gests.org/
I particularly like the "noble authors" part -- not to be confused with authors who have won the Nobel prize, of course.
The idea is, of course, that you submit your paper to this journal that nobody reads and then they charge you "registration fees". You'd have to be pretty dumb to fall for this one.
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