Books Don't Count Any More?

[T_aquaticus]

@NLENTS

Oh I think this is still very much the case. The academic presses are still putting out books, even in the sciences, that are “primary” in the sense of being a new and original synthesis of data (if not a new report of data).

I would be interested in any examples you may have.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Patrick

@eddie Do have a lot of books in your house and office? I am guessing that you do.

Of course I do. Many more shelves than Jon’s picture shows – though Jon’s shelves are higher and wider, so we may have close to the same. I lost count at about 1,200 volumes a year or two ago. And that’s not counting some journals and magazines.

[T_aquaticus]

@Eddie

Interesting. When I said that you had said this (or something very like it) a few weeks back, and John Harshman asked you if you really said it, you denied saying it. Now you are saying it again.

I would be glad to say that I was using a bit of hyperbole. If you compare the amount of scientific work put out in papers vs. books I think it is pretty obvious that the huge majority of new work comes out in papers. As the old saying goes, the exception proves the rule.

@Eddie

Possibly you are just being ridiculously sticky about what counts as “original work.” I consider fresh interpretations of existing work “original” if they advance a field theoretically. Einstein did not a stitch of “original” work – he carried out no experiments. He theorized about the results of others, and advanced his field by doing so.

Einstein also published that work in journals, like this one. His ideas were further tested and the results were also published in peer review journals.

[jongarvey]

@Mung

ETA: I’d never be able to live with those unequal height shelves!

Your books are all the same height??

[Mung]

@jongarvey

Your books are all the same height??

No, but if the bookshelves are adjacent the shelves line up regardless!

[jongarvey]

My wife’s cousin is a Russian historian. The house is like a multilingual bookshop. But no guitars (the rest of mine are behind the camera).

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@NLENTS

That just isn’t the case anymore, for better or worse.

Oh I think this is still very much the case. The academic presses are still putting out books, even in the sciences, that are “primary” in the sense of being a new and original synthesis of data (if not a new report of data).

@NLENTS I don’t disagree with you. Though, I’m sure you recognize that there is an uphill battle within science for books to be taken as legitimate contributions. Right?

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@T_aquaticus

I think it is pretty obvious that the huge majority of new work comes out in papers.

Which I never denied. My only point was that good, original scientific thought still sometimes makes its appearance in books. Books, where one has more expository room, are a more logical place to present a new synthesis than articles, which by their relative brevity are suited to presenting one experimental result and its implications.

The original context of the discussion was that some people had suggested that merely by writing a book (irrespective of its contents) Gonzalez rendered himself suspect as a real scientist. My reaction was to point out that a book, as such, does not do this, and I cited Wagner’s book (praised by Futuyma), as a book that did a scientist credit in the eyes of other scientists. The reason that Gonzalez’s book was held against him (by some) was not that it was a book (as opposed to article – he already had 68 of those, so his article output dwarfed his book output), but the specific contents of the book (which were held by some to be bad science). But I won’t be lured back into discussing Gonzalez’s case again. I’m merely pointing out, in agreement with Dr. Lents, that books are still important in science, even if they are not nearly as frequent as articles, and that having produced a book does not automatically make a scientist inferior, incompetent, suspect, dubious, etc. If the book is published by a publisher known for good scientific monographs because it is strong on quality control, and the book contains genuine new insight (even if no new experimental reports), then the book is still a respectable means of scientific communication and should not be scorned, merely because it is a book and not an article. That’s all I was originally trying to say.

[T_aquaticus]

@Eddie

My only point was that good, original scientific thought still sometimes makes its appearance in books.

Once in a while it does.

@Eddie

Books, where one has more expository room, are a more logical place to present a new synthesis than articles, which by their relative brevity are suited to presenting one experimental result and its implications.

There are plenty of review articles out there, too. For the field I work in (infectious disease), it is exceedingly rare for a book to contain new and important information.

@Eddie

The original context of the discussion was that some people had suggested that merely by writing a book (irrespective of its contents) Gonzalez rendered himself suspect as a real scientist.

It was the science in the book that they found suspect.

[Djordje]

@jongarvey

My wife’s cousin is a Russian historian. The house is like a multilingual bookshop. But no guitars (the rest of mine are behind the camera).

Believe it or not, none of my books are in Serbian.

I hate reading translated versions of books unless I have no other choice.

[NLENTS (Nathan H. Lents)]

@swamidass

I’m sure you recognize that there is an uphill battle within science for books to be taken as legitimate contributions. Right?

In most cases, yeah. Agreed.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@T_aquaticus

It was the science in the book that they found suspect.

Yes, I agree; but someone else here, at the time we were debating this, said that the mere fact that Gonzalez wrote a book at all would have been held against him, and I doubt that would have been the case had the contents of his Privileged Planet book been the same as the contents of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. In that case, the book wouldn’t have counted as a peer-reviewed publication, and might not have helped him any, but wouldn’t have been held against him. It would have drawn remarks such as “Oh, he also wrote a popular book to try to get lay people interested in astrophysics – that’s nice – now can we get back to assessing the quality of his research output and his telescope time?” It would have had neutral effect, rather than negative effect. So the “serves him right for writing a book instead of exclusively articles” claim is bogus. (In fact, he also had published an undergrad astronomy textbook which people said was quite good, and no one chided him for that, because it didn’t have the ideologically offensive content that Privileged Planet did. So it was the contents, not the book format, that raised the hackles of some.)

But this is to hash over a minor point. Let’s drop it and return to the much more interesting conversation between Jon and Mung regarding the problem of how to display unevenly-sized books – a matter causing great aesthetic anxiety to all bibliophiles like myself.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Eddie

It was the science in the book that they found suspect.

Yes, I agree; but someone else here, at the time we were debating this, said that the mere fact that Gonzalez wrote a book at all would have been held against him,

Yup that is true. Just as @NLENTS just agreed with me.

@NLENTS

I’m sure you recognize that there is an uphill battle within science for books to be taken as legitimate contributions. Right?

In most cases, yeah. Agreed.

@eddie this isn’t complex. It is just an academic culture you aren’t familiar with yet.

[T_aquaticus]

@Eddie

Yes, I agree; but someone else here, at the time we were debating this, said that the mere fact that Gonzalez wrote a book at all would have been held against him, and I doubt that would have been the case had the contents of his Privileged Planet book been the same as the contents of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos . In that case, the book wouldn’t have counted as a peer-reviewed publication, and might not have helped him any, but wouldn’t have been held against him.

If Carl Sagan was applying for tenure in a research focused department he may have faced the same criticisms.

[Mung]

@Eddie

Let’s drop it and return to the much more interesting conversation between Jon and Mung regarding the problem of how to display unevenly-sized books – a matter causing great aesthetic anxiety to all bibliophiles like myself.

The more books you gather the easier it is to find ones of the same size so that you can line up your shelves!

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@swamidass

Yup that is true. Just as @NLENTS just agreed with me.

Lents agreed with you about a general tendency. He made no comment on the Gonzalez case. [EDITED – I have deleted the part where I wrongly attributed a statement of T. aquaticus to J. Swamidass.]

You cite your field of infectious diseases, but that is not all of science. Futuyma’s remarks indicate that he reads many books on evolutionary theory – which he would hardly do if books on evolutionary theory were of no value to him as a scientist. And you can’t be sure that astronomers at Iowa State hold the same view of books that you do, unless you write to them all and ask them.

There is far, far too much speculation about motivations in these discussions. Instead of speculating about motivations, I stick with empirical evidence. We know that at least one voting member gave the explicit reason that he didn’t like the contents of Gonzalez’s book. We know of no statement by anyone that they didn’t want astronomers at Iowa State writing books and demanded that their faculty produce only articles. The fact that some didn’t like Gonzalez’s contents is established; the inference that he was penalized for writing a book is non-demonstrable. But you can have the last word, if you wish.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Mung

The more books you gather the easier it is to find ones of the same size so that you can line up your shelves!

What!?!?! You line up your books by size, rather than by topic? Perish forbid!

[T_aquaticus]

@Eddie

There is far, far too much speculation about motivations in these discussions. Instead of speculating about motivations, I stick with empirical evidence. We know that at least one voting member gave the explicit reason that he didn’t like the contents of Gonzalez’s book. We know of no statement by anyone that they didn’t want astronomers at Iowa State writing books instead of articles. The fact that some didn’t like Gonzalez’s contents is established; the inference that he was penalized for writing a book is non-demonstrable. But you can have the last word, if you wish.

I thought you weren’t going to go into the whole Gonzalez affair?

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@T_aquaticus

If Carl Sagan was applying for tenure in a research focused department he may have faced the same criticisms.

No, Sagan’s hypothetical book wouldn’t have been held against him because it was a book (as opposed to an article). Note that these three reasons for objecting to Gonzalez’s book are quite distinct:

1. Gonzalez spent so much time writing his popular book that he fell behind on producing new research at Iowa State. (legitimate objection, if true)

2. Gonzalez wrote a popular book, and normally popular books, as long as they don’t stop a scientist from producing the required output for tenure, are a matter of indifference to us, but the views advocated in this particular popular book offend us, and we don’t want a colleague who comes to conclusions like that here in our Department. We want all astronomers in this department to be reductionist materialists, like us. (shows intellectual narrowness and prejudice)

3. Gonzalez wrote a book, period. Scientists should not write books, only articles. We won’t hire someone who writes books. (a stupid objection, but one which seems to be defended by some here, despite the fact that Futuyma feels quite differently)

I’m not objecting to reason #1. I’m objecting to reasons #2 and #3.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@T_aquaticus

I thought you weren’t going to go into the whole Gonzalez affair?

I was responding to Joshua, who referred to the Gonzalez case.