The mismeasurement of science

@article{Lawrence2007TheMO,
  title={The mismeasurement of science},
  author={Peter A. Lawrence},
  journal={Current Biology},
  year={2007},
  volume={17},
  pages={R583-R585}
}
  • P. Lawrence
  • Published 7 August 2007
  • Education
  • Current Biology
View on Elsevier
doi.org
270 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
13
Background Citations
90
Methods Citations
8
Results Citations
3

270 Citations

The Last 50 Years: Mismeasurement and Mismanagement Are Impeding Scientific Research.
  • P. Lawrence
  • Education
    Current topics in developmental biology
  • 2016
The cult of the quantifiable: the fetishism of numbers in higher education
This paper examines the ‘fetishism of numbers’ (Gudeman, 1998, p.1) that has taken hold in restructured, market-oriented institutions of higher education. As all areas of academic life have been…
Where Have All the Scientific and Academic Freedoms Gone? And What Is ‘Adequate for Science’? The Right to Enjoy the Benefits of Scientific Progress and Its Applications
Article 15(1)(b) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights protects the right of everyone to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications (REBSPA). While…
Academia’s never-ending selection for productivity
TLDR
As an attempt to quantify the evolution of the academic profiles of young researchers hired over time, this work took advantage of the highly repeatable recruitment process used by the French CNRS, the largest governmental research organization in France and the largest fundamental science agency in Europe.
Benefitting from bibliometry
TLDR
Results-based financing within a department should be used carefully and should fol- low the setting of a clear research agenda, by the lowest-level leaders, and the organisation of the activity into groups.
From crime science to the crime of science
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an honest and critical reflection with regard to the damage neoliberalised education systems have had on the “crime science” of criminology in…
Escape from the impact factor
As Editor-in-Chief of the journal Nature, I am concerned by the tendency within acade- mic administrations to focus on a journal's impact factor when judging the worth of scientific contri- butions…
fetishisation of excellence
The rhetoric of “excellence” is pervasive across the academy. It is used to refer to research outputs as well as researchers, theory and education, individuals and organizations, from art history to…
Excellence R Us: University Research and the Fetishisation of Excellence
The rhetoric of “excellence” is pervasive across the academy. It is used to refer to research outputs as well as researchers, theory and education, individuals and organisations, from art history to…
Factors and indices are one thing, deciding who is scholarly, why they are scholarly, and the relative value of their scholarship is something else entirely
Quantifying the relative performance of individual scholars, groups of scholars, depart- ments, institutions, provinces/states/regions and countries has become an integral part of decision- making…
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 22 REFERENCES
The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification
TLDR
Doctors and NHS managers will enjoy this perspective as they try to cope with difficult challenges in auditing, and Michael Power is rightly critical of the current high status given to the act of observing rather than the acts of doing.
Raids on the unspeakable
This collection of his prose writings reveals the extent to which Thomas Merton moved from the other-worldly devotion of his earlier What was passing out the few, volumes in order kelly jr ruth…
Why the impact factor of journals should not be used for evaluating research
TLDR
Alternative methods for evaluating research are being sought, such as citation rates and journal impact factors, which seem to be quantitative and objective indicators directly related to published science.
Read Before You Cite!
TLDR
The application of statistical analysis to misprints in scientific citations can give an insight into the process of scientific writing as well as explain empirical studies of misprint distributions in citations.
Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences
TLDR
Geary presents a theoretical bridge linking parenting, mate choices, and competition, with children's development and sex differences in brain and cognition, in a lively and nuanced application of Darwin's insight to help explain the authors' heritage and their place in the natural world.
An index to quantify an individual's scientific research valid across disciplines
TLDR
A complementary index hI = h^2/N_t, with N_t being the total number of authors in the considered h papers, is proposed for comparison among different research areas.
Fortnightly Review: How can impact factors be improved?
TLDR
Fourteen year cumulative impact data for 10 leading medical journals provide a quantitative indicator of their long term influence.
Quiet debut for the double helix
TLDR
The historical record reveals a muted response by the scientific community to the proposal of this structure in 1953, and it was only when the outlines appeared of a mechanism for DNA's involvement in protein synthesis that the biochemical community began to take a serious interest in the structure.
Men, Women, and Ghosts in Science
Science suffers because, by favouring the self-confident of both sexes, we discriminate against women.
The politics of publication
TLDR
Authors, reviewers and editors must act to protect the quality of research in the face of threats to research integrity.
...
...