
The Problem with Scientific Credit - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/66/clockwork/the-problem-with-scientific-credit
======
eesmith
For those interested in more, there was a Discover magazine article on this
topic ("How Bad Luck and Bad Networking Cost Douglas Prasher a Nobel Prize")
in 2011, covered in HN at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8640177](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8640177)
.

Pasher made it to the Nobel Prize ceremony as a guest of Chalfie and Tsien
"who not only invited the Prashers but paid for their airfare and hotel."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Prasher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Prasher)
adds "Chalfie and Tsien were awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for
work that they publicly acknowledged was substantially based on the work of
Douglas Prasher, and through their efforts and those of others, Douglas
Prasher returned to scientific research work in June 2010. ... working for
Streamline Automation in Huntsville until December 2011, and then from 2012 to
2015 in Tsien's lab at the University of California in San Diego."

------
DoctorOetker
I have a big problem with the conclusion of this article:

They start off and continue with correct observations of failures of the
creditation system,... only to end up concluding with a moralizing of the
inidividual.

A systemic problem needs a systemic solution.

What should this Prasher have done when his grant was refused? Put a gun to
the heads of the reviewers? What should the other pilot besides Lubitz have
done? Rammed the door a little harder?

It's also totally disingenious to compare with and portray Darlene Love's
story as one of "all's well that ends well", how different would her life (and
her relatives, and perhaps the black community) have been if she had been
credited appropriately from the start?

There should be some kind of "told you so" factor resulting in feedback to
grant approvers...

We should experiment more with different credit metrics.

We should have some kind of priority blinded timestamp service, so people can
comfortably collaborate without paranoia (whenever you have an insight,
however vague or unsure you are, first get it timestamped, then communicate
the idea with your colleagues, even if most of those ideas end up nowhere in
practice), ...

The system should be such that it recognizes its own mistakes and compensates
for it, it should actively try and identify inappropriate accreditations,
rejections and try and contact the rejects, make crystal clear that the system
acknowledges its mistake, and offer to reintegrate the individual... this is a
breach of trust from the perspective of the individual after all!

------
fjuerfilis
I have such mixed feelings about this piece. On the one hand, I'm extremely
grateful for it drawing attention to these types of problems with credit. On
the other, I feel like it vastly underestimates the scope of the problem.

For one, it seems to assume the algorithm involved is somehow inferentially
perfect, which is curious. A lot of this literature is circular, in that it
assumes credit from citation patterns, which are flawed, which then taints the
whole thing. For another thing, it seems to assume researchers aren't
manipulating the perceptual processes being referenced in the article, which
is obviously isn't true (that is, that they're not engaging in dishonest
hijacking of the credit system).

------
pvaldes
Is a sort of global attack against science. Other example: the CSIC, The
biggest research organism in Spain, lost more than 1800 employees between 2011
and 2017. Even worse, a lot of the new hires where for bureaucrats. So it
seems that a lot of people are quitting research aiming for a simpler and
better life.

------
joebubna
WOW. Such a sad story about what happened with Prasher.

~~~
wisty
You might not want to look up Hugh Everett III.

