<div dir="ltr"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">fabio vicentini</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:fmvicent@gmail.com">fmvicent@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
Date: Thu, May 23, 2013 at 5:50 AM<br>Subject: The corruption series (5.2)<br>To: Moshe Sniedovich <<a href="mailto:moshe@ms.unimelb.edu.au">moshe@ms.unimelb.edu.au</a>><br><br><br><div dir="ltr">
<p></p>
<p style="text-align:left">Buenos Aires, May 23,
2013</p>
<p>Dear Moshe: </p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Subject: Paper-making
in the cattle country</span></p>
<p style="text-align:right" align="right"><i><span lang="EN-US">Never</span></i><i><span lang="EN-US"> tell a <span>lie
when you can </span></span></i></p>
<p style="text-align:right" align="right"><i><span lang="EN-US">bullshit </span></i><i><span lang="EN-US">your way through it.</span></i></p>
<p style="text-align:right" align="right"><i><span lang="EN-US">Eric Ambler</span></i></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">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.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US"> 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.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US"> 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. </span></p>
<p><span style lang="EN-US"> 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. </span></p>
<p><span style lang="EN-US"> 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.</span></p>
<p><span style lang="EN-US"> 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) <span> </span>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. </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US"> 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.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US"> 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. </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US"></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">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.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US"></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Best
wishes,</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Fabio </span></p>
<p> </p>
</div>
</div><br></div>