My father always tells stories of back in his day, we all know the type of story I am talking about. Reminiscing of the good old days when things were better. This post is one of those stories, the only difference is that the good old days were 20-30 years before I was born.

I look at the state of Scientific communication today and realise that like so much of the modern world it is becoming hollow and empty. In the past products were built to last and designed to endure the test of time, they were made of good materials and incorporated all the necessary parts. Gone are the days where you could only buy one type of ice cream scoop and it was made of solid metal, that scoop would last a lifetime, literally my grandma still has hers from the 1950’s. Now days, you can by many different scoops with new and improved methods of extracting ice cream, they fight to be the cheapest, fastest, strongest and fanciest. The products of the modern world are mostly like this fighting to be cheap and fancy but in the end almost all of them are made from poor quality materials and are realistically designed to break.

Scientific writing is becoming like these products more and more each year, quality materials are being replaced with inferior and the instruction manuals don’t actually contain the necessary information to make it work like it does on TV.

I am referring to Science journal articles and the ‘Literature’ in general, when I look at articles written at the beginning of the 20th century I see articles that describe in great detail how an experiment was performed, why it was performed and what the result was. Typically these papers also include theoretical models and equations of some kind to support the experimental data. At this point in history it appears that the ‘Literature’ was working in the way it was intended, one scientist publishes the results he has found and his interpretation of them. Other scientists would read the article reproduce the experiment and agree or disagree with the conclusions of the previous writer and then extend the experiments, with each article building on the knowledge produced in the article before it.

Unfortunately these days this is often not the case, many of the articles published are fluff pieces that provide a taste of what can be achieved but don’t explain how it was done or how it works. There are of course exceptions to this rule, thankfully otherwise the entire scientific endeavour would be pointless, but the majority of work appears to have fallen victim of the ‘publish or perish’ mindset that is so similar to the driving force behind cheap quality products.

I am saddened by the current state of scientific writing, many scientific articles are not even worth the paper they are printed on, incorporating some pretty pictures but no real new information. Too often I read an article that has been published in a peer reviewed journal that has glaring errors in the interpretation, provides no novel information, describes experimental conditions poorly or worst of all, all of the above. Currently it appears that scientists around the world are afraid to share their experiments completely because they worry that others will beat them to an interesting discovery. Instead of each publication building on the ones before it and the experiments progressing in large steps, the science of today often progresses with smaller steps than the pile of articles written about it.

The slow rate of progress and high rate of publication work together to further degrade the rate of advance in science. Since there are so many articles in the literature it becomes difficult for people to find the insightful and useful ones. Each bad publication reduces the chance that somebody will be able to take the next step forward in the line of investigation. If the ideas presented in a paper are not challenging or inspiring people will not rise to find the solution or application. Instead scientists should aim not to publish indiscriminately but only to publish when the experiments have true merit. Papers should be published only if they provide a depth of understanding that allows a solid foundation for the next steps in the investigation. One exception to this idea would be papers that demonstrated unexplained results and invited other scientists to provide an explanation.

I long for the good old days when science was science and journals were about how valuable the information in them was not how much money could be made. When scientists didn’t cry ‘publish or perish’ and print garbage in an attempt to gain funding. When one scientists discoveries provided a foothold for the next researcher to step on and we were not trying to make loose grips so that others would fall while our research continued.

In the end the Science literature should be aiming to build the body of knowledge, with each article published providing a firm foundation for the next step in the investigation, scientists should consider what they publish more carefully and the editors of Journals should place more value on the quality of the material rather than dollar value that many articles brings.

So the next time you go to publish an article ask yourself is it really worth it or are you just publishing to serve your own purpose?

Cheers,
Daniel