You Call That Research?

Once upon a time it took a lot to be a science professor. Long, long ago scientists were hard working lab rats and theorists who made great discoveries and helped to advance human kind. They earned our respect, they deserved our admiration, and they were considered geniuses, once upon a time.

That really does sound like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? The days of Albert Einstein are long forgotten. NASA can’t keep the space shuttles flying and the most adventurous space explorers are simply trying to sell low-orbit flight tickets to the wealthy masses. Isaac Newton is just an answer on a history test and Marie Curie is just half an hour of a forgotten classroom lecture now.

Science has become big business and research has been taken over by mediocre people of very average intellect trying to push garbage to public in order to say they’ve been “published”. It’s “publish or perish” in the scientific world where quality and content no longer matter.

In one of the latest examples of how far Science has fallen, a group of researchers last week concluded that things burn better when it’s hot and dry. Dan Cayan, the director of the climate research division at Scripps Institution of Oceanography along with his co-authors published a report linking the increase in temperature and drought conditions over the past 20 years with an increase in the frequency and severity of wildfires. Wow, now that’s really a breakthrough! The drier things are, the better they’ll burn and the longer things stay dry, the more fires will break out. I’m simply overwhelmed by this incredible scientific discovery!

Seriously, there probably are some third graders out there that haven’t already made this connection so perhaps the paper is aimed at them. As for the research itself, which was essentially data collected from public records; well I wouldn’t expect better from anyone less than 11 years old. This paper was nothing more than a piece of garbage thrown together in order to gain publication, but it would certainly be worthy of a B+ in most eighth-grade classes. Unfortunately, you can’t have co-authors in eighth grade. You have to do your own work there.

Ultimately, it’s sad state of affairs that this is what passes for research these days. Of course it’s perhaps even sadder that the paper is actually being published at all. But then, what can you really expect when one of the many authors is the director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Tree ring research in the middle of the desert being funded by the taxpayers of Arizona is a topic for a different day.

Date Added: 09-07-2006