Bids, not Blogs – nor Research or Articles

Thought I'd just post a brief thing to explain why there has been no new post in a while. The explanation is familiar to all who have come into closer contact with the world of academic research: I'm at the moment heavily engaged in what is nowadays by universities and governments considered to be the most precious of research tasks – namely the authouring and submission of applications for monetary funding to do research. That's right, the government research budget is used for paying me a salary so that I can apply for money to actually do that which motivates the research budget in the first place. This idea is expressed, e.g., by performance indicators governing how much government funds will be allocated to my university, faculty and department next year – where the attraction of external funding is by far the most important one (since it weighs the most by far in terms of money next year). So, in effect, besides teaching two minor courses and perhaps being able to submit one of the several papers I have been unable to finish due to this allocation of tasks by my employer, this is what my working spring will be about: being paid money for maybe (or, since the competition is deadly, rather unlikely) getting some money to do the very thing I would have been doing with my working time had I not been tasked primarily to write applications.

I'm not the only one sensing irrationality and counterproductivity in this way of the world, as you can see.

My Response to Priscilla Coleman's Article on Abortion and Mental Health Now Online at the British Journal of Psychiatry

Yep, finally, my response to Priscilla Coleman's meta-analysis that claims there to be a causal link between having an abortion and suffering subsequent mental health problems is online at the British Journal of Psychiatry website. The response targets not only Coleman, but also a number of other contributors, who have all made simplistic claims about what practical conclusions to draw from Coleman's study.

I didn't make the selection of responses that are featured in the printed issue 1 of BjP for 2012, but then again I didn't expect to, since my contribution does not address the scientific quality of of Coleman's meta-analysis.

My earlier posts on Coleman's article and the debate it has inspired can be found here, here, here, here, here and here.

Has the journal Nature sold out to the alternative medicine industry and quack/fake science?

What to say about this move of the world's (by far) most prestigeous scientific journal?

 Well, this surely does not inspire much confidence:

We are grateful for the support of our sponsors, Saishunkan Pharmaceutical Co., ltd. and the Kitasato University Oriental Medicine Research Center.

And I'm sure the boost of the Nature bank balance was handsome. This suplementary issue will very probably also do wonders for the Nature impact factor, a commodity worth its weight in rhodium in these days when scientific publication and citation is a currency and – if stunts like this are becoming a habit among the leading journals – pretty soon not very much more than that. The Nature editors must be proud of being pioneers in this area.

One blogger with both insight and clout has so far concluded:

I'm left with the conclusion that, to their eternal shame, by publishing this issue, the editors of Nature have become willing shills for the TCM industry. Nature has sold out, and its editors and publisher should be called out for it.

But, please, judge for yourselves here (the supplement issue is apparently open access online) and read the comments so far....

Here, and here.

Ta!