[Coral-List] the "expiry date" of science...

Abigail Moore abigail2105 at yahoo.com
Tue Aug 21 13:09:46 UTC 2018


Dear fellow Coral-listers
I just felt I really had to reply to Tomas regarding his reply to an interesting thread...only top two pasted below to keep things short! 

Denis wrote: "Papers now tend to cite the "latest" paper on a particular topic and ignore the "classics" - including the first to describe a particular phenomenon or introduce an argument...". Then Tomas wrote "The decline of citing early (pre-1990s) original works has probably started with the Google search and access to the new electronic journals" and "a lot of the early research was off line and accessible only if we went to the library stacks with hard volumes".

For my colleagues and myself, this very marked trend towards a shortened "shelf-life" of scienctific publications is not (or at least only marginally) due to any lag in digitisation of older papers; rather, it is a policy issue, at government and institutional levels. 

In Indonesia there is a pervasive obsession with novelty, frequently backed by rules that the majority (often a minimum percentage, for example 80%) of papers cited must be less than 10 years old, sometimes with a premium on the past five years. This applies in , thesis/dissertations, articles, proceedings, etc, as well as proposals for research funding and often in academic homework. 
In some cases this is really challenging, when a substantial proportion (or in a few cases the only) published relevant or foundational work was done more than 10 years ago. This often means that the author is pressured to "cite the citers" rather than the original "out-of-date" work. 

In 1996-1997 when studying for my Master's (based in the UK, with research in Indonesia) I found many of my references through travelling abroad and searching through physical libraries, especially in Australia. I then had to ship back the photocopies. Now the majority of these publications (and many like them) are on-line, and still well worth reading (and refering to, i.e. citing). But we have to weigh the professional risk of citing "older papers" (including many published well after I wrote my Master's Thesis), whatever their merits.

I am curious to know if there are similar trends or constraints in orther countries. I would also like to know what other listers think about this concept of a sort of "sell-by-date" approach to science and scientific publications.

Abigail
Abigail M. MoorePhD Student - Doctoral Program in Fisheries Science
Universitas HasanuddinMakassar, Indonesia

Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2018 10:30:13 -0700
From: tomascik at novuscom.net
To: Dennis Hubbard <dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu>
Cc: coral list <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] SPAM R2: Re: The Four Principles of
    Ecological Restoration
Message-ID: <20180818103013.62903gmnrfvk0e5h at webmail.novusnow.ca>
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    format="flowed"


Hi Dennis,

My apology for the empty e-mail that I just sent out in reply to your  
e-mail, I hit the wrong key. The decline of citing early (pre-1990s)  
original works has probably started with the Google search and access  
to the new electronic journals. It took a while before the journals  
managed to put most of their material online and that may have  
contributed to this decline, since a lot of the early research was off  
line and accessible only if we went to the library stacks with hard  
volumes.

Tomas

Quoting Dennis Hubbard <dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu>:

> It's been a looong time, but when I was starting out, there were two common
> practices that seem to have declined over the years for reasons I've never
> understood. The first relates to citations. Papers now tend to cite the
> "latest" paper on a particular topic and ignore the "classics" - including
> the first to describe a particular phenomenon or introduce an argumnt that
> we think we've come up with. I understand that we need to set the stage
> with the most recent thinking. But, as a result, we might forget (for
> example) that Conrad Neumann coined the term *Bioerosion *in the 70s and
> that the phenomenon was described for sponges in the 1800s. I miss the
> scholarship that allows us to understand the historical context of modern
> arguments and find myself too-often saying, "....read that 20 years ago".
>
> The second relates to "negative" results. I was taught that one of the key
> elements of any good Discussion was a careful consideration of what we
> might have missed or done wrong - and how our interpretations might be
> misdirected despite apparent statistical support. Pointing out possible or
> real mis-steps was the norm (including failed results).
>
> So, "good for you" Julian. It's not just avoiding repeated mistakes; it's
> good scholarship.
>
> Dennis


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