“It is time to help the pendulum of power swing back to favour the person who actually works at the bench and tries to discover things.”

Go read The mismeasurement of science Lawrence PA. 2007. Curr. Biol. 17: R583-R585.(ht: evolgen). Really. Right now. It is a fantastic commentary on the detrimental effect impact-factor chasing and the like has on the course of scientific investigation. The title of the post is the concluding sentence.

I get into discussions about this problem from time to time. Although I’ve perhaps touched on the issues in blog posts once or twice, I’ve never done the full critique. And now I don’t have to, thanks to Lawrence’s commentary. [Update 08/16/07: Go see David Colquhoun’s GoodScience site for more on this.]