[Todos] Fwd: The corruption series (5.2)

[fabio vicentini]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: fabio vicentini <fmvicent en gmail.com>
Date: Thu, May 23, 2013 at 5:50 AM
Subject: The corruption series (5.2)
To: Moshe Sniedovich <moshe en ms.unimelb.edu.au>


 Buenos Aires, May 23, 2013

Dear Moshe:

Subject: Paper-making in the cattle country

*Never** tell a lie when you can *

*bullshit **your way through it.*

*Eric Ambler*



As I said in my previous letter if I write in Spanish they won’t pay
attention so let me make myself clear in our master’s voice: the United
States of America.

 A scientific paper should serve a useful purpose, and that would normally
be the case if it has required a time consuming effort by his author. I
have worked in industral firms 30 years as an operations researcher and I
estimate that only 3 out of 70 projects I dealt with were worth
transmitting to my colleagues. That would amount to one paper every ten
years. On the other side my colleagues at Baires university publish one
paper every 6 months on the average. The alternative is: 1) I am an idiot
with a MSc and a PhD. 2) Academics are publishing bullshit.

 In the nineties Argentina had its most corrupt administration since our
founding fathers, and I lost my job and forced to take refuge at the School
of Sciences of Buenos Aires university wherein I found that professors are
pressured to publish papers in peer-reviewed journals.

 Professors who work full-time are expected to lecture and do research.
Their performance is measured mainly by their research, and research is
measured by the number of papers published in a journal - mind you, by the
number not by the content. It is assumed that its content has already been
judged by the journal's referees.

 Every seven years the professor, say doctor X, has to engage in a contest
that we call "concurso" whose "jurados" count the number of papers that X
has published so far - let this number be n(X). Now, if another candidate Z
who competes with X has a number of papers greater than n(X) then the
jurados would discharge X and Z would be given X's job. Even if X would
overcome this ordeal, he will have to confront again the concurso after the
next seven years and so forth. As a result 1) X is eventually kicked off
his chair 2) X is retired at 65 or 3) X dies of heart failure. Surely I am
exagerating, but we have no tenure like in the States or Canada.

 Now, let us assume that professor X is an honest man, then when he finds
the solution to his research problem he sends it to a journal. But this is
NOT the objective. The objective is to publish a paper because that is what
the jurados count. X realizes that a serious problem may take years to be
solved or never if it is the Riemann hypothesis. So, in order to survive in
our school X should leave behind certain qualms like honesty. Now then,
there are ways to maximize the number of papers: 1) join a prolific
"research group" 2) choose a successful coauthor 3)  choose a
papers-generating problem 4) exploit your thesis students 5) enlist in the
school mafia. Whichever his choice the end result would probably be
sophisticated bullshit.

 I made an estimate of the number of papers published yearly by an academic
from a sample of 24 colleagues in the math dept and I obtained 2 papers per
solar year on the average.

 All these people are smart but none is a genius. A normal human being
cannot discover a significant new fact of science twice a year. But he is
forced to publish because the atmosphere he is in gives him the feeling
that he is in danger of losing his job if his paper is not forthcoming. As
a consequence he fakes research to produce papers.

While working in industrial firms I wrote progress reports to my
supervisors about the project I was dealing with but there was no use of
paper-making for journals in the production environment. Academics are not
doing science but a "show of science". Theory contained in papers has a
merit if it finds its way to benefit society, otherwise bullshit produced
in a state university is financed by the taxpayer.

Best wishes,

Fabio
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