相关论文: On the rules of science game

In a commentary published in mid-2024 (to which the present work is a direct response), a number of scientists argue that U.S. funding agencies have "politicized" the process by which grants are awarded, in service of diversifying the…

Statistics is one of the most valuable of disciplines. Science is based on proof and it alone produces results, other approaches are not, and do not. Statistics is the only acceptable language of proof in science. Yet statistics is…

Machine learning algorithms are increasingly used to make or support decisions in a wide range of settings. With such expansive use there is also growing concern about the fairness of such methods. Prior literature on algorithmic fairness…

Problems for evaluation and impact of published scientific works and their authors are discussed. The role of citations in this process is pointed out. Different bibliometric indicators are reviewed in this connection and ways for…

Computer scientists are trained to create abstractions that simplify and generalize. However, a premature abstraction that omits crucial contextual details creates the risk of epistemic trespassing, by falsely asserting its relevance into…

Allocational harms occur when resources or opportunities are unfairly withheld from specific groups. Many proposed bias measures ignore the discrepancy between predictions, which are what the proposed methods consider, and decisions that…

This essay, originally published in the Sept 1990 Notices of the AMS, discusses problems of our mathematical education system that often stem from widespread misconceptions by well-meaning people of the process of learning mathematics. The…

Decision-makers abhor uncertainty, and it is certainly true that the less there is of it the better. However, recognizing that uncertainty is part of the equation, particularly for deciding on environmental policy, is a prerequisite for…

An accurate and fair assessment of the efficiency and impact of scientific work is, despite a lot of recent research effort, still an open problem. The measurement of quality and success of individual scientists and research groups can be…

The complexity of cultures in the modern world is now beyond human comprehension. Cognitive sciences cast doubts on the traditional explanations based on mental models. The core subjects in humanities may lose their importance. Humanities…

A common flaw of astronomers is to believe that they know the truth even when data is scarce. I provide ten examples where this approach led to wrong strategic decisions in research plans, causing unnecessary delays in finding the truth. In…

Scientific literature has been growing exponentially for decades, with publications from the last twenty years now comprising 60% of all academic output. While the impact of information overload on news and social-media consumption is…

Classifying journals or publications into research areas is an essential element of many bibliometric analyses. Classification usually takes place at the level of journals, where the Web of Science subject categories are the most popular…

This special volume of Statistical Sciences presents some innovative, if not provocative, ideas in the area of reliability, or perhaps more appropriately named, integrated system assessment. In this age of exponential growth in science,…

Quantifying success in science plays a key role in guiding funding allocations, recruitment decisions, and rewards. Recently, a significant amount of progresses have been made towards quantifying success in science. This lack of detailed…

Recent work on artificial consciousness shifts evaluation from behaviour to internal architecture, deriving indicators from theories of consciousness and updating credences accordingly. This is progress beyond naive Turing-style tests. But…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is gradually changing the planet. Data digitisation, computing infrastructure and machine learning are helping AI tools to spread across all sectors of society. This article presents the results of a…

Credit is an essential component of financial wellbeing in America, and unequal access to it is a large factor in the economic disparities between demographic groups that exist today. Today, machine learning algorithms, sometimes trained on…

Nearly a decade ago, the science community was introduced to the $h$-index, a proposed statistical measure of the collective impact of the publications of any individual researcher. It is of course undeniable that any method of reducing a…

There are growing uncertainties surrounding the classical model of computation established by G\"odel, Church, Kleene, Turing and others in the 1930s onwards. The mismatch between the Turing machine conception, and the experiences of those…