|
|
The average number of authors on scientific papers is sky-rocketing. That’s
partly because labs are bigger, problems are more complicated, and more
different subspecialties are needed. But it’s also because U.S. government
agencies have started to promote “team science”. As physics developed in the
post-World War Ⅱ era, federal funds built expensive national facilities, and
these served as surfaces on which collaborations could crystallize
naturally.
Yet multiple authorship — however good it may be in other ways — presents
problems for journals and for the institutions in which these authors work. For
the journals, long lists of authors are hard to deal with in themselves. But
those long lists give rise to more serious questions when something goes wrong
with the paper. If there is research misconduct, how should the liability be
allocated among the authors? If there is an honest mistake in one part of the
work but not in others, how should an evaluator aim his or her review?
Various practical or impractical suggestions have emerged during the
long-standing debate on this issue. One is that each author should provide, and
the journal should then publish, an account of that author’s particular
contribution to the work. But a different view of the problem, and perhaps of
the solution, comes as we get to university committee on appointments and
promotions, which is where the authorship rubber really meets the road. Half a
lifetime of involvement with this process has taught me how much authorship
matters. I have watched committees attempting to decode sequences of names,
agonize over whether a much-cited paper was really the candidate’s work or a
coauthor’s, and send back recommendations asking for more specificity about the
division of responsibility.
Problems of this kind change the argument, supporting the case for asking
authors to define their own roles. After all, if quality judgments about
individuals are to be made on the basis of their personal contributions, then
the judges better know what they did. But if questions arise about the validity
of the work as a whole, whether as challenges to its conduct or as evaluations
of its influence in the field, a team is a team, and the members should share
the credit or the blame.
1. According to the passage, there is a tendency that scientific
papers____________.
A.are getting more complicated
B.are dealing with bigger problems
C.are more of a product of team work
D.are focusing more on natural than on social sciences
|
|
发表于 2017-8-6 14:04:38