Message-ID: <0.8e375863.2581cb8b@aol.com> Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 22:20:43 EST From: mailto:StrutInst@AOL.COM Subject: Re: The Scientist: What's Right? To: mailto:DEVEL-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
In a message dated 12/8/99 8:40:32 PM, mailto:kerryo@NS.SYMPATICO.CA writes:<< http://www.the-scientist.library.upenn.edu/yr1999/dec/opin_991206.html
The Scientist, Volume 13, #24 What's Right about Scientific Writing Alan G. Gross and Joseph E. Harmon
In recent commentaries in Nature, the New York Times Magazine, and the American Scholar, the scientific article has come under attack because it has allegedly degenerated into a thick "molasses of jargon and academic code." >>
Dear Sir -
The funding of the scientific enterprise has been suborned for so long that it is small wonder that the published accounts of scientific inquiry seem as if written by aliens on another planet.
Science involves the creation of theories followed by the testing and, necessarily, the rejection of those theories which do not pass the "test." Scientists are creators of intellectual properties who have, as a group, given away rights to the fruits of their own intellect and labor in return for the opportunity and the resources to do the jobs for which they have been trained. The first employment condition every industrial scientist put a signature to assigns the output of his/her mind to their employer. What other line of work requires this? On the other hand, academic scientists gives up title to their own ideas every time he/she submits a grant proposal for anonymous review by their own competitors! Most scientists in the U.S. earn less than the average U.S. autoworker yet technological progress is said by some to be an engine of productivity and wealth-generation.
Scientific papers are not written to be read, they are written to be published. Mistakes found in these publications will certainly make future funding harder to get. A sure way not to make mistakes is to say nothing. Nevertheless, a scientific paper must have a certain length. The Institute for Scientific Information has long reported that the great majority of published scientific papers are never cited by anyone except the original authors. Furthermore, the written instrument of monetary gain in the science biz is not the scientific paper at all, it is the patent. Interestingly, if one investigates the authorship cohort within the scientific publications put forward on a given topic and then compares these with the authorship cohort of issued patents on the same subject, one often finds almost no crossover!
A savvy manager might make hay out of this situation.
Mike Mychajlonka, Ph. D. Exec. Dir. Struten Institute http://members.aol.com/strutinst/struten.html