
Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations (2007) - denysonique
https://fliptomato.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/medical-researcher-discovers-integration-gets-75-citations/
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benbreen
If you go to Google Scholar and search "Tai's model," you can find that this
from 1994:

"Tai's formula is the trapezoidal rule"

[http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/17/10/1224.short](http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/17/10/1224.short)

As well as Tai's response:
[http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/17/10/1225.2.short](http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/17/10/1225.2.short)

As a fellow academic, it seems to me like Tai wasn't really claiming to have
reinvented the wheel here (or maybe I should say the area under the wheel). It
looks to me like she took what my psychologist friends call the "Least
Publishable Unit" (LPU) too much to heart. She claims, in the response, that
she was asked to publish it by some colleagues so that they could cite her in
a paper of their own; it's unclear to me why they would _need_ to cite such a
thing, but most likely it was just the typical explanation - where you cite
your friends at any possible opportunity, even when they recapitulate Isaac
Newton ;)

Granted, I think it's a weak rationale, but I suspect it's not so much that no
one involved knew calculus; it's more that they wanted to drum up more
citations for people inside their field rather than outside. In fact, I see
that even the people who wrote in to protest managed to rack up 7 citations.

------
plaidfuji
Beyond being a feel-good piece for math-inclined folks to finally have one to
hold over those arrogant doctors, this basically reveals all the worst parts
of credit distribution in academia. Until "knowledge" can be quantified and
catalogued in an exhaustive database such that new contributions can be
evaluated instantly for novelty, this kind of thing will occur because there
are lots of inter-academic communication barriers to intermediate.

Also, the context of citations is important and isn't quantified by anyone. My
guess would be that this paper has been cited more as a cautionary tale than
in actual practice, and those two citations should not be treated equally.

~~~
WilliamEdward
Academia is just one of those ancient industries that is tough to crack
because of how traditional it is. I just know there's some hungry
entrepreneurs waiting to pounce on the idea of a "Modern Peer Review Journal"
startup, but you will not be 'disrupting' this industry anytime soon I'm
afraid.

Just by the way Tai's Method was invented in 1994. Nothing has changed since
then in terms of peer-review credibility or reliability. You will need to be a
genius or a miracle worker to change up academia.

~~~
nonbel
>"I just know there's some hungry entrepreneurs waiting to pounce on the idea
of a "Modern Peer Review Journal" startup, but you will not be 'disrupting'
this industry anytime soon I'm afraid."

What would they add beyond sci-hub?

~~~
1_over_n
one (far-fetched) idea would be peer-reviewed experimental research videos.
See how the authors did the steps in their study. When an author writes up
their experimental steps as a reader we are told the best version of events,
however, the map is not the territory. Writing up research tells us little
about the quality of the work, which is inferred from the publication, quality
of writing, lab group, funding body etc.

Also, it would give the people doing the grunt work and gathering the
experimental data some visibility rather than just the lead author.

~~~
maidens
The Journal of Visualized Experiments [0, 1] publishes peer-reviewed videos of
experimental research. You should check it out if you're interested.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Visualized_Experime...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Visualized_Experiments)
[1] [https://www.jove.com/](https://www.jove.com/)

~~~
1_over_n
thanks, super cool - I feel like this should be part of the peer review
process, especially for high impact journals with novel findings

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integrate-this
From the paper:

In Tai's Model, the total area under a curve is computed by dividing the area
under the curve between two designated values on the X-axis (abscissas) into
small segments (rectangles and triangles) whose areas can be accurately
calculated from their respective geometrical formulas. The total sum of these
individual areas thus represents the total area under the curve. Validity of
the model is established by comparing total areas obtained from this model to
these same areas obtained from graphic method Gess than ±0.4%). Other formulas
widely applied by researchers under- or overestimated total area under a
metabolic curve by a great margin.

Absolutely hilarious!

~~~
komali2
Sorry, I'm not very smart or something, I don't get why it's hilarious, can
you explain?

~~~
integrate-this
She rediscovered part of a first semester calculus course and named it after
herself, then had it published, and literally nobody stopped this from getting
into a medical journal.

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dddddaviddddd
Presently cited over 300 times according to Google Scholar:

[https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?cites=18129095207210817294...](https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?cites=18129095207210817294&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en)

It's like an academic equivalent of a software patent on an existing idea.

~~~
WilliamEdward
Someone pointed out that most of them probably cited as a joke, like in the
legal field where they cite ridiculous lawsuit names ("The United States of
America vs Satan")

~~~
c3534l
Yeah, they're not serious citations. They're either criticisms or jokes. I've
heard that it's become a bit of a meme.

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jkingsbery
Ha!

For whatever it's worth, physicists aren't necessarily up on everything
written by the medical community. Take for example, these letters to Diabetes
Care written in 1994 criticizing Tai's article soon after it was published:

www.math.uconn.edu/~kconrad/math1132s14/handouts/taicomments.pdf

~~~
throwawayjava
_> For whatever it's worth, physicists aren't necessarily up on everything
written by the medical community. Take for example, ..._

I'm confused. While I definitely believe that you are correct in that
assessment, the example you gave doesn't seem relevant.

Mary Tai was an EDD (doctorate of education), not a physicist. and the reply
was from the mathematical community, not the medical community.

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hyperpallium
Is knowledge knowledge if unknown?

This is similar to founders/creators getting kicked out when mass marketing
kicks in - who generated the wealth?

In terms of human good, unfortunately it's the latter.

And if the definition of the Scientific Method includes sharing with a
community. If so, you cannot do science alone. But how big does the community
need to be? Does sharing it with one other person enough? A small community? A
large community? _Everyone_?

I think, if we're going to include sharing, it has to be with all humanity
(broadly, to include other imtelligences). Wartime science _isn 't_ science.

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basicplus2
This is sad because it shows that general enducation standards have dropped
dramatically across the board given that this sort of stuff really should be
(and used to be) known by every high school student..

~~~
swebs
What country or state are you guys in? We've never touched on calculus in
Pennsylvania high schools. The advanced math courses focused on trigonometry.

~~~
basicplus2
Australia in the 70's

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ColinWright
Previously on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1964613](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1964613)

And again:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17250073](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17250073)

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scottlegrand2
I made top dollar in college tutoring bio majors in calculus. It just wasn't
their core competency.

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wycx
Does anyone have a reference for 'cutting it out and weighing it'?

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trhway
Has she applied for a patent yet?

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cmollis
That’s incredible.

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cozzyd
It's a trap(ezoid)!

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motivic
Don't judge a paper (solely) by the number of citations.

