[Coral-List] FIELD OF GIANTS

[Dennis Hubbard]

Hi David:

I share your concerns. My biggest concern involves the upcoming generation
of reef scientists, many of whom appear to be discouraged from critically
searching the literature. I have been told on more than one occasion that
journals are increasingly demanding that only the most "up-to-date
citations'' be included. As a result, important historical context is
undervalued relative to claims like, "for the first time....". Leading
universities have increasingly allowed PhD candidates to bundle some number
of published papers in lieu of a formal dissertation. Unfortunately, these
future scientists will lack the appreciation of many older papers that set
the stage for modern research .As a result, too many "cutting-edge papers
seem to be reinventing the wheel. This is all too common in "flagship
journals" like *Science* and *Nature *that  severely limit citations
(something on the order of 10-12 last time I checked). These practices make
it easy to miss important historical context to the point that we may be
seeing papers on the origins of atolls that fail to cite folks like Darwin,
Daly and WM Davis.

Dennis

On Fri, Sep 24, 2021 at 8:41 AM David Blakeway via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> Revisiting this 2021 article about the big GBR Porites.. It's a little
> disappointing that the authors hadn't picked up on the 2020 article, IN THE
> SAME JOURNAL, describing a Samoan Porites colony a full ORDER OF MAGNITUDE
> more massive than the GBR example. Is literature review becoming an
> afterthought?
> Also, the abstract contains the sentence: "This is the largest
> diameter *Porites
> *coral measured by scientists and the sixth highest coral measured in the
> GBR." As written, the first clause of this sentence is clearly incorrect.
> It was probably intended to apply only to the GBR, but, if so, should have
> been punctuated: "This is the largest diameter *Porites *coral measured by
> scientists, and the sixth highest coral measured, in the GBR." (which still
> seems to imply, to me at least, that non-scientists can't be trusted with a
> tape measure - I'm sure that was not the intention).
> Of course, it's impossible to write the perfect paper, and unfair to expect
> the editor and reviewers to catch everything. But surely these oversights
> shouldn't have got through? I think I am over-sensitive to this stuff but,
> for me, they spoil what is otherwise a great little paper.
> signed K.R. Mudgeon
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-- 
Dennis Hubbard - Emeritus Professor: Dept of Geology-Oberlin College
Oberlin OH 44074
(440) 935-4014

* "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"*
 Benjamin Stein: "*Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream*"