Thought of the day

The entire point of being an academic, science or otherwise, is to understand and evaluate different ways of thinking about something!!!!!

Personalized genomics of affirmative action

In the 23andOneQuarterMe era of percentiled ancestry, affirmative action policies should score on number of generations in Appalachia, percent of recent ancestors who never left the holla’, percent African ancestry, Neandertal and what not.

Go.

Challenging grant attribution on manuscripts

One of the little career games I hope you know about is to cite as many of your funding sources as possible for any given manuscript. This, btw, is one way that the haves and the rich of the science world keep their “fabulously productive” game rolling.

Grant reviewers may try to parse this multiple-attribution fog if they are disposed to criticize the productivity of a project up for competing renewal. This is rarely successful in dismantling the general impression of the awesome productivity of the lab, however.

Other than this, nobody ever seems to question, assess or limit this practice of misrepresentation.

Here we are in an era in which statements of contribution from each author is demanded by many journals. Perhaps we should likewise demand a brief accounting as to the contribution of each grant or funding source.