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

Tue Aug 21 21:20:39 UTC 2018

Hi Tom.

At the start of my Indonesia project, I visited the library. It was sad, as Abigail has alluded to. So I had a brilliant idea!
(I have decided to stop having those.)

I canvassed my colleagues back in Canada, collected a huge bunch of donated books. Including a 20-year run of GCA, which will annoy some people whose libraries can't afford it...Amounted to a cubic metre of books. Weighed a ton, literally and figuratively. 

Shipped it off.

Visited next year, checked out the library (that donation would have doubled their holdings at one shot.) No books. wtf?? Rooted around.

Turns out a senior faculty member had appropriated the entire shipment for his library, on the basis that knowledge is power. There was a short sharp discussion and the books were released to the library.

Things have changed a great deal, for the better...people at that institution now are well-read, way ahead of me.

Mike
________________________________________
From: Coral-List [coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] on behalf of tomascik at novuscom.net [tomascik at novuscom.net]
Sent: August 21, 2018 2:27 PM
To: Abigail Moore
Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] the "expiry date" of science...

Dear Abigale,

Thank you for your e-mail with the enlightening information that I
have to admit I was not aware of. It makes me wonder just how many
coral workers have actually read Darwin's 1842 "The Structure and
Distribution of Coral Reefs".

Tomas

Quoting Abigail Moore <abigail2105 at yahoo.com>:

> 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>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; DelSp="Yes";
>     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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