q*d
发帖数: 22178 | 1 Philip J. Wyatt
Wyatt Technology Corporation, Santa Barbara, California
A few years ago, Robert Fefferman, dean of physical sciences at the
University of Chicago, made an interesting remark. He mentioned that Enrico
Fermi, wanting to encourage individual creativity and innovation, required
his PhD students to select their problem, solve it, and submit the results
for publication in their name alone. Fermi also was aware that a multiauthor
paper with one famous author might receive automatic acceptance rather than
a thoughtful and thorough review. Many PhD students then and since have
published their theses under joint authorship with their advisers.
Unfortunately, the need among grant-seeking academics to publish and be
cited often grew stronger, especially during federal funding cutbacks, the
most recent example being the cuts in science budgets under President George
W. Bush. When applying for government grants, an applicant team’s record
of many cited publications was important to confirm that the submitted
proposal had significant cachet for continuing support. A vicious cycle
began.
Over the years, publication lists were increasing. Some colleagues boasted
more than 300 publications and one close to 800! The number of authors
associated with each published article was also increasing; single-author
papers had become relatively rare. Were Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi,
Richard Feynman, and other great scientists just lucky in finding simple
ideas that one mind could understand and present? Or was technological
creativity becoming so difficult that great teams of scientists were
required to recognize and develop it?
Seeking answers, I made a cursory examination of some publication records of
the last half century. I selected the eight publications listed in the
table to the right and selected the first issue of each from January 1965
and from January 2011. To compare innovation over time, I included data on
the first 100 patents issued to US applicants by the US Patent and Trademark
Office during the corresponding periods. The data were gleaned from the
office’s weekly Official Gazette.
The results seem truly astonishing. Although the data sets selected are
relatively small, they show the downward trend of individual creativity.
Most of the papers studied were written by authors in, or associated with,
academia. A few came from government laboratories and some from industry.
It has long been evident that some professors established groups of graduate
students whose main activities were often focused on publishing research
results. Authorship of such articles expanded to include all members of the
group despite only the peripheral or negligible contributions by some,
historically referenced in an acknowledgements section. Over the years,
nonacademic groups, especially in the life and pharmaceutical sciences,
added to the publication proliferation; R&D directors often put their names
on every paper leaving their lab. A person even slightly involved with a
project would be added as an author. What began as an innovative topic of
investigation became an opportunity to be published and thereby increase one
’s personal citation numbers. Thus participants who simply made
measurements, or converted the measurements into appropriate numbers, or
kept the equipment operating were all listed as purportedly creative
coauthors. What was actually the creativity of one or two authors became the
work of a great many. And each such paper carried the name of the professor
whose contract or grant paid for the work. Thus if the paper turned out to
be important, the multitude of authors could add impressively to their CVs.
On occasion there even may have been a sinister element to the process of
adding authors. For example, the author list might include a friend or
colleague of the lead scientist, an indirect financial supporter, or a
contractor’s technical representative. No author would ever discuss this
matter publicly.
Many problems of irrelevant authorship arise with the journals themselves.
Although all journals provide manuscript preparation guidelines that include
some type of warning against “double publishing”—that is, repeating
significant portions in another paper—only a few ask the contact author to
confirm that the listed authors all contributed to the paper. Both Science
and Cell, for example, do ask that all authors of an accepted paper “state
their contribution to the paper,” but they do not list any criteria for
actual authorship, nor whether specific types of contributors should be
relegated to an acknowledgement section.
A friend of mine, a former Bell Labs physicist, defended the inclusion of
his name to the end of the author queue of each paper published by his
students though many of the ideas were entirely his. His reasoning was that
“the graduate student should always have top billing so that his career can
be advanced.” Each author’s personal list of “first author”
publications was certainly increased by my friend’s unselfish generosity.
It remained up to the reader to figure out whose ideas were actually being
presented.
Whereas in former days, a PhD candidate during graduate school would prepare
only a single paper based entirely on his or her work, the trend today is
to leave graduate school with a raft of publications, considered essential
for a job or postdoctoral appointment. Unfortunately, the time spent getting
published often seems to be at the expense of obtaining the greater in-
depth knowledge of the science itself. In the hundreds of interviews and CV
reviews I have conducted over the past 25 years, I have found the presence
of the basic building blocks of the science decreasing with each passing
year. When a recent PhD in a physical science said that helium formed
diatomic molecules, I knew we were in trouble!
The patent data shown in the table are of particular interest. The
percentages for two or three inventors per invention for the most recently
issued patents do not vary greatly from the percentages for 46 years earlier
. Here’s why: If a listed inventor, or “innovator,” did not actually
contribute to the invention, the issued patent will be void if such
deception is ever discovered. The patents most easily challenged in court
may well be those with extraordinary numbers of inventors.
Here’s a final Fermi-inspired question: How many of today’s tenured
faculty members or research directors have never written a single-author
paper?
Tables
Contrasting individual creativity over time
t1n1(Data compiled and processed by Crystal Forsher.)
Authors per paper (% of total)
Journal Date One Two Three Four or more
Physical Review / Physical Review A 1/4/1965 35 40 18
7
1/1/2011 6 27 29 38
Journal of the American Chemical Society 1/1/1965 14 43
25 18
1/12/2011 0 14 25 61
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1/15/1965 32 34
20 14
1/4/2011 0 11 15 74
Applied Optics 1/1/1965 58 26 11 5
1/1/2011 0 17 11 72
Journal of Theoretical Biology 1/1/1965 47 53 0 0
1/7/2011 20 33 27 20
Proceedings of the IEEE 1/1/1965 57 35 6 2
1/1/2011 12 19 19 50
Science 1/1/1965 78 11 7 4
1/7/2011 41 15 5 39
Nature 1/2/1965 45 34 18 3
1/6/2011 28 14 9 49
Inventors per US patent (% of sample)
First 100 US patents issued per time period 1/1/1965 - 6/1/1965 70
18 10 2
1/1/2011 - 1/8/2011 41 24 12 23 | N***m
发帖数: 4460 | 2 这作者是火星来的？
都啥年代了，还满嘴跑火车原创。。。
不知道大多数人就是混口饭吃啊
Enrico
multiauthor
than
【在 q*d 的大作中提到】
: Philip J. Wyatt
: Wyatt Technology Corporation, Santa Barbara, California
: A few years ago, Robert Fefferman, dean of physical sciences at the
: University of Chicago, made an interesting remark. He mentioned that Enrico
: Fermi, wanting to encourage individual creativity and innovation, required
: his PhD students to select their problem, solve it, and submit the results
: for publication in their name alone. Fermi also was aware that a multiauthor
: paper with one famous author might receive automatic acceptance rather than
: a thoughtful and thorough review. Many PhD students then and since have
: published their theses under joint authorship with their advisers.
| q*d
发帖数: 22178 | 3 其实他说的不就是你的这个意思,
Too many 混口饭吃的,too few不混的
required
results
【在 N***m 的大作中提到】
: 这作者是火星来的？
: 都啥年代了，还满嘴跑火车原创。。。
: 不知道大多数人就是混口饭吃啊
:
: Enrico
: multiauthor
: than
| N***m
发帖数: 4460 | 4 这么trivial的东西还要写成文章。。。可见原作者也是在灌水
【在 q*d 的大作中提到】
: 其实他说的不就是你的这个意思,
: Too many 混口饭吃的,too few不混的
:
: required
: results
| N***m
发帖数: 4460 | 5 突然发现这是钓鱼贴阿!
【在 q*d 的大作中提到】
: 其实他说的不就是你的这个意思,
: Too many 混口饭吃的,too few不混的
:
: required
: results
| g*******g
发帖数: 447 | 6 终结：一个傻×为了混个single author的paper写了一个大家都知道的事实。 | q*d
发帖数: 22178 | 7 如果大家都知道,却没人说出来,
那一样有意义.
怀疑皇帝没穿衣服的可能很多,
第一个说敢出来的
【在 g*******g 的大作中提到】
: 终结：一个傻×为了混个single author的paper写了一个大家都知道的事实。
| N***m
发帖数: 4460 | 8 体制内的人人都知道,体制外的最好都别知道,特别是
分配funding的人.
【在 q*d 的大作中提到】
: 如果大家都知道,却没人说出来,
: 那一样有意义.
: 怀疑皇帝没穿衣服的可能很多,
: 第一个说敢出来的
| h********0
发帖数: 12056 | 9 并不是所有人都认同你的观点，你没看到，single author 的文章还是有的，只是
科学混混越来越多了，所以，少给点funding 是好事，这样，昏昏们会少一点。
【在 N***m 的大作中提到】
: 体制内的人人都知道,体制外的最好都别知道,特别是
: 分配funding的人.
| w********h
发帖数: 12367 | 10 混混不要funding，只要tenure了教书就好。。。
【在 h********0 的大作中提到】
: 并不是所有人都认同你的观点，你没看到，single author 的文章还是有的，只是
: 科学混混越来越多了，所以，少给点funding 是好事，这样，昏昏们会少一点。
| | | g*******g
发帖数: 447 | 11 混混们大都很能拿funding 所以funding少就逆向淘汰了
【在 h********0 的大作中提到】
: 并不是所有人都认同你的观点，你没看到，single author 的文章还是有的，只是
: 科学混混越来越多了，所以，少给点funding 是好事，这样，昏昏们会少一点。
| N***m
发帖数: 4460 | 12 正如我也发过single author的垃圾水文一样。
可笑的是，竟然还有个位数的引用，所以俺
毅然选择了退出。
【在 h********0 的大作中提到】
: 并不是所有人都认同你的观点，你没看到，single author 的文章还是有的，只是
: 科学混混越来越多了，所以，少给点funding 是好事，这样，昏昏们会少一点。
| q*d
发帖数: 22178 | 13 老实说,没搞懂你的思维..
【在 N***m 的大作中提到】
: 正如我也发过single author的垃圾水文一样。
: 可笑的是，竟然还有个位数的引用，所以俺
: 毅然选择了退出。
| N***m
发帖数: 4460 | 14 。。。
我很明显的BSO啊。。。
开玩笑啦。。。
【在 q*d 的大作中提到】
: 老实说,没搞懂你的思维..
| s******u
发帖数: 4 | |
|
