In previous episodes, we accused each other, giving more or less relevant examples, commenting/asserting with more or less comprehensiveness, with more or less “human” understanding, with more or less probability of error, circumstances, exceptions. Sometimes trying to get very useful insights, sometimes risking more or less adequate generalizations. Legions of whores, with various fixations or mental irritations (I’m not talking about those with flies on their hats), could froth and apostrophe and only use some inflammatory words or terms that people don’t understand here and there. . Many others could have said much more intelligent things, many super-intellectuals could have raged in more or less emotional criticism, out of self-love or mission accomplished with the speculative virtuosity of polemical delusion. Everything I said could have versions or additions/corrections without a number, obviously above. However, even with pretended modesty, I feel that I have not had time to say much about the sins of “academic” accounting called scientometrics. Or about the perception and displeasure of some/many of us towards this new, martial-invasive, authoritarian-cazon and ultimately stupid discipline.

Discipline, judgment, mechanism and manner (…) which became God. An evil, very evil, vile evil, increasingly dictatorial, monopolistic and global god, whom very few people worship and a huge number of whom we criticize, but we are reduced to cursing him exclusively in conversation, “in the corridors”, in useless rumors. gossip God-Idol and totem, which is actually just the devil, because it helps to lie, to write formulaic and formal, to become an administrative and accounting wooden language, to return to the exclusive positivism characteristic of yesterday’s “exact sciences” – the day before yesterday. yesterday/the day before yesterday, for “humanitarians” means nothing but castration, formalism, abuse of creativity, murder of the spirit. As much as we talk about “qualitative” evaluation or performance, a purely formalistic quantitative evaluation takes precedence. And not only in the sense of conveyor productivity, numerically huge, because it is easy to perceive it as strange, doubtful, suspicious, but also affects the essence. Because it requires a quantification of the intangible and profound, something that is beyond the reach of any evaluator (unless they are highly cultured and experienced, and even have a more or less vague, educated, or excellent intuition). There are (if or rarely when) subtleties that cannot be evaluated arithmetically, percentageally or scalarly, equationally or algorithmically (in any case, also metasubjectively), and in this sense scientometric evaluation (anything accounting-scientometric assessment!) is nothing but, fatally, equally incompatible and incompetent.

Not knowing such things, at the moment scientometrics – at least for “human sciences” (humanities, cultural studies, etc.) – inadequate. Beyond the elementary level of the ethics of the most primitive empirical common sense, it is merely artificial and, because of its dictatorial character, irresponsible, demeaning, counterproductive, and even harmful. And it gets crazier and crazier, with more and more rule after rule and decision after decision without spirit, they are stupid, unequal, mechanistic, stupid.

Online Exposure and Correlation Software takes the proposed deontology and apparent honesty a step further word for word everything presented academically. Only in this word for word it is reduced to the names of authors, titles, abstracts, keywords in the most accessible/accessible/harmful way. The fact and for which is the use and abuse not only of as many names as possible (no software tells us if all these names are justified or even necessary through the text), but also precious, pompous, terminologically excessive names, then extremely general keywords (automated reference and bibliography author search and maintenance software relies only on identifying/selecting terms and concepts from the title as well as from universal keywords), and annotations that say almost everything – both in the text, or even deviating from unnecessary mannerisms (thereby seeming to expand their area of ​​representativeness and connectivity).

A serious problem is the emergence (also with very good intentions, but with potentially disastrous consequences) of a known DOI. This DOI is no more than 8-10 years old, from now on it is imposed everywhere, but absolutely everything that was before its appearance, everything that was not placed on the network (that is, millions of books and studies, even scanned and presented as images in the open access, do not fall into the web of technical details based on DOI, do not “search” and do not find software and bots, which are now real sources and authorities serving young intellectuals), remain ignored. DOI offers the appearance of modernity and efficiency, reduced to speed and quantity, typical of the “(less intelligent) spirit of the day”, hiding all history, burning stages, but it also compiles and promotes exclusively this modernity. The activities of this exclusive advanced internet graphy can “go” in areas such as advanced mathematics, engineering/technology, chemistry… But no, absolutely not, and here mentioned and always offered “human sciences” and cultural studies, where rarely , to the exceptional, is how to be acceptable and honorable.

Chinese objects, which we talked about (more or less in detail) in previous episodes, are exactly the quality of anti-personnel mines, which is why they detonate. Placed everywhere (especially since someone pays), they occupy the scientific field and oversaturate it. And the cost of producing them is extremely low (especially because that production is facilitated by all the rampant DOIs that make software pass everything in the world’s names and annotations as similar terms that can be used for almost anything). Invaders, once published, is well regarded, serving as a role model for all the Gagauzs (I wrote to Gagauzs, sorry!) who really think this is okay, right, but above all I see it happening. Therefore, their model becomes dominant, global, even if it is meaningless. Will anyone else stand up against him? Will anyone walk around with a magnifying glass and a candle after deontology or look for a “man” without breaking their head quickly? What minister of education, literature, art and philosophy (world map) has the courage to gather together other ministers of education, literature, art and philosophy on the world map to decide that now (or never) is the time to decide whether we want to continue to be idiots, can we do anything to save the honor of the human spirit, the human dignity achieved, with the ups and downs of two thousand years of history? Or do we now also make humanism a kind of textual cyborg, or rather we all go to hell with our origins, maintaining a (dental) attachment to agriculture, gathering, fishing, hunting, animal husbandry, and why not fight with each other with stakes, axes, pitchforks, scythes! So we hide all culture and settle for just technology? I mean, as humans, we become nature’s animists again, slaves to the pleasure of existing only in flesh and blood and in the debauchery of a bird of the sky, while with our bodies we also do space tourism and travel on rover roads? Let it be empty rhetoric. But I prefer (with all my heart I swear I prefer!) that it should prove baseless, mitokan, or futile, than that the future should bear the least resemblance to it.

I said that scientometrics already forces you to become formalistic, even lying with obvious candor, even before the DOI. For two decades now, you’ve had to upload an “article/research” text not only with an abstract (it’s enough to get you cited or referenced only on what you learn in the abstract), but also with a string of keywords (which is only good for to reduce all your efforts, intelligence and style to just a few terms/concepts that everyone can understand, how and for what they want, what are the patterns of your work and doom you to readership limited). In recent years, accounting and scientometrics, as well as deontological/legal, have blessed you with the obligation to publish after your article/research text a whole page reservation, which is an insult to common sense. An insult because it implies that you don’t have that common sense, that you can always be fully aware, that you don’t risk inventing/discovering what others know or would have said long ago, that you are an original and an author and… god knows what more wording with a legal aura, to specific trifles, which otherwise even any student who copies or is inspired by a neighbor at the bank has in mind. I repeat (because many people read march-fugue, and I really think that you do not say anything in the text without concrete examples): you must mention there in the form (as if it was not meant) that you made a robot with your own hands ( i.e. it belongs to you, so you swear you’re not a thief) that you’re not infringing any copyrights (known/unknown) that authors have equal input and take full ownership of everything they write (because you’re not a jerk anymore, to write alone, in co-signing you are friends, you can include your friends or relatives as co-authors when almost one person is working on an article, but that person will take turns signing the other 2-3 articles they do, also in turns, every one of your gang when the “big” international journals ask for money, and only as a trick, if you don’t get a grant, you collect it and put it into a test, when you can get a “reward” of money if and when you publish “ISI”) . And you also declare that there is “no conflict of interest”, that the work was/is part of an unknown sponsorship, institutionally funded project or private supplementary plan, or none/none, and even that the “data”, i.e. mass of raw materials, is possible to order . Of course, this chatter is an empty parade deal, because it does not at all exclude deception or empty lies, knowing that “blood” checks are rarely carried out, in the case of achievements, coincidences, similarities or “epic” results of any public scandal, litigation or blocking of careers, which take place only in the case of VIPs, politicians, high-ranking government positions. For most scientists and researchers who are not fighting for different peaks, the caveat can remain untested, well kept on file “just in case”, little risk is assumed. And then “checks” are carried out on the basis of reports (for pre-publication) or assessments made by themselves, who are also authors and co-authors here and there, members not only of all kinds of “objective” committees, but also in real time possible cross-checks links with many other reviewers/reviewers.

Let’s see, as a pale example, it’s just absurd to put points/grades with the same number in a 2-page review of school banality (a simple presentation of the content of a book, sometimes not even read) with another of 15 pages, even very intelligent and obviously post-docs, complete references, footnotes and bibliography. Or the so-called study of 5 pages with another 45. No evaluator gets around to reading the material being evaluated (repeating exactly the same 5, 10 or 15 points, according to his own/autonomous maximum evaluation). system), doesn’t take into account at least the physical length of the paper (yes, in advanced physics and math, 3 pages can be pure gold, not in the humanities). I insist: he in no way reads a few pages himself, although the humanities, no matter how ignorant you are, you still intuitively understand whether the text has a dox, whether it looks like a magazine for waiting in a barbershop, or was made by someone who has a real book science, or he was simply tormented by an amateur masturbator. In fact, the evaluator only verifies and signs the correctness of the evaluation that each author has put independently, he is only an auditor and accountant of self-evaluation and declarations.

How blind scientometrics is, one could prove, for example, by putting on the table the volumes of the former academician. Dr. Eng. Elena Ceausescu. If scientometrics had existed 40 years ago, the corresponding texts would have seemed to him to be as dignified and impeccable as possible. But the problem is that scientometrics can tell us absolutely nothing about the quality and creativity of all current research, because it “judges” exclusively on the statements or formal confirmations of other gudurists, clients and collaborators Read the article in full and comment on Contributors.ro