Dr. G in WIRED magazine

The Scientist's very own Eugene Garfield is featured in a very nice WIRED article about the science of rating scientists and their research.

The story, which appears in WIRED's May issue, tells how Dr. G (as he is affectionately called around the halls of The Scientist, which he started more than 20 years ago) revolutionized the way that citations in the scientific literature were tracked.

"The citation becomes the subject," Garfield told WIRED. "It was a radical approach to retrieving information."

The article traces Dr. G's path from librarian to inventor of the Journal Impact Factor, a key reality for every publisher involved in the game these days.

Do you have any stories of your interactions with Eugene Garfield? Though we can hardly go a day without hearing scientists tell us about memorable run-ins with Dr. G, we'd love to hear more.

Bob Grant, Associate Editor - The Scientist

I found this tidbit to be very interesting:

That's why Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin cited Eugene Garfield in their academic work on PageRank, the algorithm that powers their company's search engine.

BobTS1007522 wrote:
about the science of rating scientists and their research

Journal Impact Factor = measure of the citations to science and social science journals.

What does this have to do with "the science of rating scientists and their research"?

This is another glaring sad example of the prostituting, by the sience establishment guild of the 20th century technology culture, of the terms science, scientist and research...

Dov Henis

DovTS1019153 wrote:

BobTS1007522 wrote:
about the science of rating scientists and their research

Journal Impact Factor = measure of the citations to science and social science journals.

What does this have to do with "the science of rating scientists and their research"?

Dov, This is just on particular metric. It was a dramatic improvement on previous ones. The aricle itself discusses its shortcomings and a few upcoming rivals.

Do you have a better suggestion on how we rate scientists and research?

MichaelTS863182 wrote:
Do you have a better suggestion on how we rate scientists and research?

Michael,

I do not pretend to have any suggestion on how now to scientifically rate scientists and research.

The present science establishment is, IMO, widely-deeply cancered with the malignant 20th century Technology Culture, of which public rating is one symptom. Tackling only this one single symptom would be a very difficult task.

My most probably hopeless approach is to stir the stagnant water and initiate evolutionary changes that would eventually re-place science, scientists and research where Western culture departed from Enlightenment circa 100 years ago, when it dealt with the essence of nature and life evolutions, and elected to become a pierced-ear slave (Ex.21, 6) to the Technology Culture .

IMO it is vitally important for now charting the course of our society to learn and understand, to analyse and assess, with a scientism perspective, the evolution and collapse of the Technology Culture and the implications, within it, of the bare survival of basic classical science, of the further comprehension of our place and fate in the universe.

Respectfully suggesting,

Dov Henis