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A genomics professor has devised a tongue-in-cheek measure of scientific work vs. scientific recognition.
Neil Hall, a genomics professor with the University of Liverpool, has kicked up a bit of an Internet storm. He's written a paper and has had it published in the journal Genome Biology, suggesting (with tongue firmly in cheek) that some scientists are getting more attention than they deserve, due to their heightened social standing. He's even come up with a way to measure it, his so-called "Kardashian-index" or more simply, K-index-it's derived by noting how many people are following the scientist on Twitter and then dividing that number by followers the scientist probably should have due to papers written and associated citations for it, i.e. proof of actual work done.
The index is named after Kim Kardashian (and her family) of course, who have become famous for being famous -- they don't actually do anything. And that's the point of Hall's paper-is the scientific community in danger of being overrun by scientists who make a lot of noise in the social media world, but do very little actual scientific work? Hall notes that there seems to be times when scientists are asked to give talks at conferences based more on their social standing than on work they have actually done. This begs the question, are scientists (regardless of field) just as susceptible to the cult of celebrity as everyone else and if so, is it harming science?
Full text: http://genomebiology.com/2014/15/7/424
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday August 06 2014, @10:45PM
Guess we should just go back to Latin for scientific work, that would solve the entire celebrity question!
On the other hand, question begging is not the begging for questions, as illiterate morons think that "begging the question" means, so the problem is not just unfortunate translation. It is more a falsely construed similarity. A parallel that may be informative is the British English expression, a "damp squid", as a way of saying that something does not live up to expectation, or fizzles. The original expression was that something was a "damp squib"-- see that? Different word! A squib is a small explosive charge, which if damp may sputter or fizzle instead of exploding. Squid, on the other hand, are almost always damp to begin with, so the expression is either redundant or meaningless. The use of "begs the question" for "raises the question" is the same kind of mistake, usually made by those who are educated enough to have heard the phrase, but not well enough to understand it. So it is, in fact, and literally, something of a damp squid. And not a famous Kardashian Scientist kind of damp squid.