Authors fail to illuminate the LPU issue

We most recently took up the issue of the Least Publishable Unit of science in the wake of a discussion about first authorships (although I’ve been talking about it on blog for some time). In that context, the benefit of having more, rather than fewer, papers emerging from a given laboratory group is that individual trainees have more chance of getting a first-author slot. Or they get more of them. This is highly important in a world where the first-author publications on the CV loom so large. Huge in fact.

I’ve also alluded to the fact that LPU tendencies are a benefit to the conduct of science (as a group enterprise) because it allows the faster communication of results, the inclusion of more methodological detail (critical for replication and extension) and potentially the inclusion of more negative outcomes (which saves the group time).

I have also staked my claim that in an era when most of us find, sort and organize literature with search engine tools from our desktop computers, the “costs” of the LPU approach are minimal.

The recent APS Observer reprinted a column in the NYT that I’d originally missed entitled “The Perils of ‘Bite sized’ Science” (MARCO BERTAMINI and MARCUS R. MUNAFÒ; Published: January 28, 2012 ). Woot! No offense, commentariat, but you’ve done a dismal job so far of making an argument for why the LPU approach is so bad or detrimental to the conduct of science, particularly in response to my reasons. So I was really stoked to see this, in hopes of gaining some insight. I was sadly disappointed.