Subject: [Tweeters] How science really works!
Date: Mar 19 14:35:31 2008
From: birdbooker at zipcon.net - birdbooker at zipcon.net


HI ALL:
Fred Bird (yes that's his real name!) asked me to pass this along to Tweeters:

New York Times March 18, 2008

By CAROL KAESUK YOON




For Scientists, a Beer Test Shows Results as a Litmus Test


Ever since there have been scientists, there have been those who are
wildly successful, publishing one well-received paper after another, and
those who are not. And since nearly the same time, there have been
scholars arguing over what makes the difference.

What is it that turns one scientist into more of a Darwin and another
into more of a dud?

After years of argument over the roles of factors like genius, sex and
dumb luck, a new study shows that something entirely unexpected and
considerably sudsier may be at play in determining the success or
failure of scientists - beer.

According to the study, published in February in Oikos, a highly
respected scientific journal, the more beer a scientist drinks, the less
likely the scientist is to publish a paper or to have a paper cited by
another researcher, a measure of a paper's quality and importance.

The results were not, however, a matter of a few scientists having had
too many brews to be able to stumble back to the lab. Publication did
not simply drop off among the heaviest drinkers. Instead, scientific
performance steadily declined with increasing beer consumption across
the board, from scientists who primly sip at two or three beers over a
year to the sort who average knocking back more than two a day.

"I was really surprised," said Dr. Tomas Grim, the author of the study
and an ornithologist at Palacky University in the Czech Republic, who
normally studies the behavior of birds, not scientists. "And I am happy
to see that the relationship I found seems to be very well supported by
my new observations in pubs, bars and restaurants."

Dr. Grim, carried out the research by surveying his fellow Czech
ornithologists about their beer drinking habits first in 2002 and then
in 2006. He obtained the same results each time.

The paper has quickly been making the rounds among biologists, provoking
reactions like surprise, nervous titters and irritation - often
accompanied by the name of a scientist whose drinking is as impressive
as his or her list of publications.

Matthew Symonds, an evolutionary biologist at the University of
Melbourne who has also studied factors affecting scientific
productivity, called the results remarkable.

"It's rather devastating to be told we should drink less beer in order
to increase our scientific performance," Dr. Symonds said.

Though the public may tend to think of scientists as exceedingly sober,
scientific schmoozing is often beer-tinged, famous for producing
spectacular breakthroughs and productive collaborations, countless
papers having begun as scrawls on cocktail napkins.

Yet the new study shows no indication that some level of moderate social
beer drinking increases scientific productivity. Some scientists suggest
that biologists in the Czech Republic could prove to be an anomaly,
given that the country has a special relationship to beer, boasting the
highest rate of beer consumption on earth.

More important, as Dr. Grim pointed out, the study documents a
correlation between beer drinking and scientific performance without
explaining any correlation. That leaves open the possibility that it is
not beer drinking that causes poor scientific performance, but just the
opposite.

Or, as Dr. Mike Webster, an ornithologist and a beer enthusiast at
Washington State University in Pullman, said, maybe "those with poor
publication records are drowning their sorrows."

In spite of his study, Dr. Grim, who said he would on occasion enjoy
more than 12 beers in a night, is not on a campaign to decrease beer
drinking among scientists. Why not? His answer: "I like it."



________________________________

--
Ian Paulsen
Bainbridge Island, WA USA
A.K.A.:Birdbooker
\"Rallidae all the way!\"