For Yet Better Science

Daniel Stokols , professor emeritus of planning, policy & design, and  Judith Olson , professor of informatics, are co-authors of a new report from the National Research Council that concludes scientific research is increasingly dominated by teams–a promising approach that is also rife with challenges. The report is likely to have major public policy and research funding implications as academic and scientific research communities are still largely structured around an outdated concept of the independent solo investigator. Team science can be difficult, especially when teams or groups are geographically dispersed, include diverse disciplines or experience changing membership. Yet the evidence indicates that innovation and impact are enhanced by multidisciplinary science teams.  

For two decades, Women’s Health Research at Yale (WHRY) Director  Carolyn M. Mazure , Ph.D., has prompted change in how investigators at the university focus on the “who” and “what” of health research. As she looks across research institutions today, she sees that the cause she has championed — the inclusion of women as subjects in health research — has become increasingly recognized in scientific circles. Now, she says, we are at a critical point, and the scientific community needs to decide if it will embrace true transformational change in science.  

Papers are a key currency for academic careers—which is why publication disparities among various groups, such as men versus women, are often a focal point for efforts to increase equity and diversity. Now, a new study quantifies another of these gaps: LGBQ academic scientists who don’t disclose their sexual orientation in the workplace publish fewer papers than their out or non-LGBQ peers. (The same effect of disclosure was not observed among scientists who were gender minorities.)  

This 8th edition of top scientists ranking for Computer Science was published by Research.com, one of the major websites for Computer Science research offering credible data on scientific contributions since 2014. The ranking contains h-index, publications and citations values collected on December 6th, 2021.  

Across disciplines, researchers in the Computational Neuroscience Initiative at Penn put their heads together to better understand the brain.  

Expert predictions can be used as a tool for making research stronger, as my co-authors Stefano DellaVigna, Devin Pope and I argue in a new article published in  Science .   The way we interpret research results depends on what we already believe. For example, if we saw a study claiming to show that smoking was healthy, we would probably be pretty sceptical. If a result surprises experts, that fact itself is informative. It could suggest that something may have been wrong with the study design. Or, if the study was well-designed and the finding replicated, we might think that result fundamentally changed our understanding of how the world works.

I’ve been aware of Leonid Schneider’s expose blog ever since the piece on the supposed  fraud of Nobel prize-winner Gregg Semenza  appeared on my Twitter feed. Schneider portrays himself as an  under-dog ; the self-styled “ failed scientist ” has taken a liking to pillaring the hypocrisies of the scientific establishment. To be honest, although criticisms of the undertakings of science are always needed, especially when it concerns matters of data integrity, publishing practices, and perverse incentives in academia, I am a bit weary of uncritically listening to someone who appears to have no established career in either science or science journalism (the only pieces published under his own name appear only on the blog he runs).   It’s all too easy to make baseless accusations, especially with a medium like Twitter, which Schneider seems to do happily even going as far as  calling respected publishing journals he doesn’t like “predatory”.  Yes, science needs to be more open and transpar