In reply to my own question, I hope this post gets some hard-hitting responses. As a Briton living in Norway, I notice the big difference in the status of old-boy (and yes, they are predominantly male) networks here compared to the UK. In Norway, virtually absent an aristocracy, old school ties and Oxbridge-style networks are almost nowhere to be seen. If thy do exist, then they hide themselves well. Of course, Oxbridge has produced great scholars, but so too has London University, Edinburgh University and many others. Ranking scores based on publication rates - a prominent measurement tool - can be very misleading.

For all that, I stand to be corrected and/or corroborated. Best wishes, Paul

Hello Paul, I appreciate the question and the answer.  Being born in Penang, once a British Straits settlement, I grew up having very high views of Oxford and Cambridge universities.  They were the first I knew besides the local universities.  Being female, I do not like the fact that the scientific societies comprised mainly male, and only male at a further point down in history.  And I heartily agree that ranking prestigious universities by publication rates is as misleading as ranking researchers by impact factor.  Scholars on my side of the publishing divide do not get a chance to publish in some TR journals.  The misleading measurement tool makes education more like an ivory research tower project, and does not place value on how education serves society: the farmers who grow our food, the hair dressers, the fisher-folk, the hawkers, the common people on the street. (I have downloaded a paper of yours.  Thanks.)

Dear Paul, a twofold perspective allows us to answer yes. Firstly, historically Oxbridge are and have been the best universities in England, by and large. Science - at large - has crossed both universities if not nurtured it.

On the other hand, currently, the different rankings - say, Shanghai, QS, THE, and others, clearly shows that both Cambridge and Oxford (in that order!) are by and large the best universities in the UK.

One may like or not, but the data are crude. (I did a post-doc in Cambridge and I know how good it is, and many senses).

Miranda, many thanks for your perceptive comments on non-published but eminent scholarship. I am sure this is a minefield waiting to be excavated. Best wishes, Paul

Carlos. Thank you for reminding me of those important ranking organizations. Yes, Oxbridge does consistently well, based on the data that such organizations provide. That said, so does London University.

My concern is that quantification alone can be a very blunt tool. There are many unsung, unpublished scholars, and their formidable contributions to knowledge often go unnoticed or just summarily browsed. I am reminded of E. P. Thompson´s masterpiece, The Making of the English Working Class. I believe that if he studied at a university at all, then this was during his adult years.

Then there is Socrates, who from what can tell did not put pen to parchment but who must surely be reckoned as one of the greatest founders of western philosophy. After all he did tutor Plato, much of whose written work is a presentation of Socratic ideas.

I must also mention that during the Napoleonic Wars, English gentleman who wished to become navy sea captains, had to attend universities in Scotland because establishments like Oxbridge did not regard navigation as a gentlemanly art (or science). Where would navigation and other naval scholarship be (Cook and Nelson come to mind) without some of Britain´s finest but non-Oxbridge sea captains. The question is rhetorical; hence the absence of a question mark.

In Scotland, at the time, navigation, engineering and physical sciences thrived. On the other hand, a scrape-through pass in Greats at Oxbridge was considered good enough for the post of governor somewhere in the "Empire". 

Finally, as a statistician, I find it intellectually lazy on the part of the organizations who create the university rankings to imagine that so very few independent variables (e.g. published research) are sufficient to make a plausible case for the grand claims that are issued in the alleged rankings. Best wishes, Paul

Dear Paul, I am on your side. My point, though is that our time has radically changed - when compared to any other period in history.

Politically the use of standards and rankings, etc. was a creation of the OECD. That's a big word, as we all know. This history begun early n in the 1960s with the firsts seed of what was to be known as scientometrics.

Lucky Socrates, Descartes, or Newton, f.i. who did not know about scientometrics - and its related fields, such as informatics, etc.

Thank you for the clarification Carlos. Newton, whom you mention, did teach at Cambridge, which adds an impressive aura to that old establishment. Hawking was later to be appointed to Newton´s former chair.

Interestingly, Newton did not discover gravitation, though. Some colleagues of his used empirical methods to hypothesis the presence of gravity. They turned to Newton for mathematical proof, which he duly provided. I believe Prinsipa Matematica was the upshot. Best, Paul

You know what the problem is, dear Paul? The world has changed. I wouldn' t say whether for good or bad, as yet).

In the past there existed no rankings no matter what. Our time is subject to them.

Let me please tell a short story, which, I am sure is nearly universal. Many members of the Colombian Academy of Sciences are respectable, though elder people. Their achievements and CVs are judged more qualitatively. When seen at the light of rankings, the vast majority of this Academicians fall short of... almost nothing.

Younger scholars, however, are judged in terms of h-index, and the like. To any part - the worlds has changed, that's it. 

I fully agree Carlos. Old fashioned scholarship, if one may call it so, often revealed itself in the lecture hall where Socratic-style debates and insights were at the forefront. Today, as you intimate, scholarship has sometimes - but I hasten to add, not always, thank goodness - been placed into tidy quantifiable boxes.

And yet here I am in the RG professional community - for which I have much respect - in which number predominates. Please do not misunderstand me, though. I consider it legitimate to "measure" research output and, crucial this, also quality.

At the same time, however, we must, perhaps in the style of reviews, bring outstanding non-published contributions to knowledge into the academic and public domain. All best wishes and many thanks for getting me thinking. Your posting is very insightful. Paul

That's indeed a fine paradox, dear Paul. We might question the necessity of rankings and standards, and yet we discuss this within the framework of a network that up-votes, down-votes and quantify are activities...

The world of quantifications has arrived to remain. And yet, the qualitative stance is not be undermined.

It is so ironical Carlos that we don´t embrace the bigger picture; in this case, one that includes - no, embracers - qualitative rigor. Best wishes Paul PS: Perhaps RG might find a way to bring a qualitative dimension into the ratings.