Stop the numbers game - Counting papers slows the rate of scientific progress

再次强调，论文不是目的，而是自然结果。但是，也许现在的评价体系有点逼良为娼的味道：不仅仅在我们中国自己的范围内。 最近在CACM上看到一篇很有趣的文章，人家老外也在抱怨。下面是部分段落：

Only if experts read each paper carefully can they determine how an author's papers have contributed to their field. This is especially true in computer science where new terms frequently replace similar concepts with new names. The title of a paper may make old ideas sound original. Paper counting cannot reveal these cases.

Sadly, the present evaluation system is self-perpetuating. Those who are highly rated by the system are frequently asked to rate each other and others; they are unlikely to want to change a system that gave them their status. Administrators often act as if only numbers count, a probability because their own evaluators do the same.

Those who want to see computer science progress and contribute to the society that pays for it must object to rating-by-counting schemes every time they see one being applied. If you get a letter of recommendation that counts numbers of publications, rather than commenting substantively on a candidate's contributions, ignore it; it states only what anyone can see. When serving on recruiting, promotion, or grant-award committees, read the candidate's papers and evaluate the contents carefully. Insist that others do the same.

全文如下：David Lorge Parnas, Stop the numbers game, Communications of the ACM, Volume 50, Number 11 (2007), Pages 19-21

我的小注：难怪Science等大牌journal上的参考文献格式，都是只有作者名和journal名，没有论文名的。是不是人家早就预防到了这点，提醒我们，不要只看个论文题目就判断论文的价值，至少要看看论文的摘要吧。