How percent of the life is dirty job ? How percent of selling oranges at the market is dirty job ? How percent of sport is dirty job ? How percent of love is dirty job ?

The fact we get so big a scandal of the fact science works like all the human things that are BY DEFINITION a mix of good and evil and anyone trying on this land to separate good from evil made terrible things like civil wars, massacres, racism...for the simple thing man is doing the job God will do in the last day with much less acume and skillness than our Creator. Now, our goal is to try and pursue good and abandon evil but we are not perfect, we are very far to be perfect and, as sinners, we continuously go back and forth from 'the dirty' track (e.g. a propos of science the deep idea we are the 'best of the world' and a little bit superior, smarter, more honest and so forth with respect to other people is the most common 'dirty job' of our work), so, in my opinion, the important question is 'Do the vices of science are seriously impinging the quality of science products ?', In other words Caravaggio was a violent and an homicide (but even a deep believer, this is the point many people cannot understand, ..it is the Grace baby !) he had a terrible relation with his peers and overtly tried many times to put in bad light their work, nevertheless he produced the most incredible masterpieces of all times...even Einstein was a terrible person for many aspects and we all know what he produced...in my opinion now the big problem is that the (unescapable) vices of science (thus of scientists ginen science is made by people doing science) are now a menace for the quality of the products, in this sense I think the most dangerous one is the need of economic (and thus political and media) power to use science in an ideological way to convince people of a lot od crazy things (just to name a few: the lack of things technolog can't do, the lack of free will, a masked eugenetics...), science sin is to be a servant of these powers.....this is demoniac in some sense...al the rest is human (and thus inevitably dirt/clean dark/light)....

You are right, Demetris, in all your items. It is invincible evil.

@Demetris, nice question as well as its explanation! As You have seen, I wrote a lot about corruption and political influence in education. Later I am going to give You much detailed answer!

Dear Demetris,

About the paper publishing industry, yes, you are right. IEEE journals are perhaps the leaders in this regard!

About elections, you are right again. If you are a member of a scientific organization, once a year you would get letters of request asking for votes!

About patents, I do not have any experience anyway.

How percent of the life is dirty job ? How percent of selling oranges at the market is dirty job ? How percent of sport is dirty job ? How percent of love is dirty job ?

The fact we get so big a scandal of the fact science works like all the human things that are BY DEFINITION a mix of good and evil and anyone trying on this land to separate good from evil made terrible things like civil wars, massacres, racism...for the simple thing man is doing the job God will do in the last day with much less acume and skillness than our Creator. Now, our goal is to try and pursue good and abandon evil but we are not perfect, we are very far to be perfect and, as sinners, we continuously go back and forth from 'the dirty' track (e.g. a propos of science the deep idea we are the 'best of the world' and a little bit superior, smarter, more honest and so forth with respect to other people is the most common 'dirty job' of our work), so, in my opinion, the important question is 'Do the vices of science are seriously impinging the quality of science products ?', In other words Caravaggio was a violent and an homicide (but even a deep believer, this is the point many people cannot understand, ..it is the Grace baby !) he had a terrible relation with his peers and overtly tried many times to put in bad light their work, nevertheless he produced the most incredible masterpieces of all times...even Einstein was a terrible person for many aspects and we all know what he produced...in my opinion now the big problem is that the (unescapable) vices of science (thus of scientists ginen science is made by people doing science) are now a menace for the quality of the products, in this sense I think the most dangerous one is the need of economic (and thus political and media) power to use science in an ideological way to convince people of a lot od crazy things (just to name a few: the lack of things technolog can't do, the lack of free will, a masked eugenetics...), science sin is to be a servant of these powers.....this is demoniac in some sense...al the rest is human (and thus inevitably dirt/clean dark/light)....

Alessandro, the problem is not the existence of dirty in science, the problem is that science conceitedly argues about its 'clear water' nature: 1)for the assumptions used 2)for the results obtained 3)for the social status of the scientists.

But, I did not read any number ( say 20% 50%, 70% etc) for the 'dirty - percentage' that I have asked!

Examples counting (continued):

4)The Medicin + Pharmaceutical industry: Give me 30 patients and I shall present you a study-paper that will promote your pharmaceutical product, even marginally! The big, very big issues about Statistics are here: Infinity=30 (for normality reasons). But, the product after the study has been published can obtain license be sold on the market. Have you imagined how many drugs we have consumed based on researches with low statistical inference indices?

Is this a dirty job or not? And if yes, then how much % do you think is so?

Dea Demetris, anyone claiming his 'clear water nature' (even science) does that inspired by devil, so this is a REAL PROBLEM but too big for being discussed in terms of percentages....but you are right in asking for pecentages and the percentages Joho Ioannidis gives in his paper is near 100%:

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124

This is the 'end product in terms of quality' pof all the sins of science you identified before (power groups, financial interests, science idolatry, publish-or-perish)....the situation is very critical indeed ...

Dear Demetris,

Your question has nothing to do with science. You can get only a lot of sad particulars on human nature. This is an openly covered question on ethics.

Dear Demetris,

I want to come back to your original question trying and depotentiate the 'ethically puzzling' points and rephrasing it as 'Which percentage of your time is spent in activities that have to do with social and political 'acceptance' of your job ?'

In other words 'How much time you spent in activities that should not be necessary in a perfect world in which I can do my job without 'power linked/economic' pressures ?'

Said in this way we can try and sketch some percentage and evaluate the 'freedom score' of science work, just as an example a shepard's work has 100% freedom: he must stay with the sheep all the time is needed for taking them to the meadows and producing wool, cheese and milk that is the core business to be a shepard, he does not need (at least this is the idea I had from my talkings with some shepards in the Appennini mountains near Roma) to go to dinner with people he does not like just for continuing his job, and he never must put water in the milk so to have a bigger product (i.e. impact factor)...Apparently paradoxically a public relation man of a big enterprise is again 100% 'free in his work because engaging all the activities we as scientists consider as 'dirty' IS EXACTLY HIS WORK...so we have another extreme...

As for me I'm in a very priviliged situation, just because I have my salary even if I do not produce anything new (I have a tenure) and because, working as a methodologist I do not need to struggle for grants (I never applied), moreover I have no Ph.D. working with me so I do not have any obsession about money....my sin is the classical sin of the scientist , i.e. to be superb and thinking I'm very very smart and self-confident , but this is a personal problem with my consciouness and God and I try and to solve it with non-scientific tools (pray, confession, voluntary work with poors....). Well, put in this way, my work is dirty-free at 90% (at odds with the shepard I have 10% of public relation activities with 'eminent people' I must engage for not being considered a too superb person and in those occasions I offer the worst of me..) , clearly to be 90% free is not my merit, this comes from external facts like Italian Public Administration Organization and by natural events like increasing age.....now, devoid of any moral implications I think the question of 'wasting time' for facing the 'politics outside' could be answered.....

Alessandro put another option in the discussion: That of the time spent for promoting a scientific profil or for making what it is necessary in order to overcome barriers of any kind, political, economical etc. The example of the shepard is a good one: They live their lives without any kind of social hypocrisy, opposite to the life of an active scientist. The relativity in what is good or bad is covered by the example of the public relation profession. We could cynically speaking say that a scientist could hire an agent, just like any cinema star, in order to do the dirty job for him.

The writers do it every day: "Oh for such things you have to talk with my agent, I don't deal with all those cases"

The main problem in science is Hypocrisy: Since Science has obviously replaced Religion after Renaissance we can blame it by the same way that people had been blaming the dominant religion of the Medieval Times.

Otherwise, if scientists are self grounded on Earth like Alessandro, we have nothing to blame against them and of course they are not dirty.

A way to recognize dirty persons is their excessive self-esteem.

Finally, dear András, we have to discuss about ethics of science, since the latter governs our lifes directly or indirectly.

Dear Demetris,

In the 1st area, that you have mentioned the % is probably close to 50%. But among the ones who produce research and publish thinking of the benefit it may bring to certain people, and without thinking of the 2nd part ('or perish') you find the other 50% :)

For the 2nd area, on the choice of a professor, I think the percentage may be higher, perhaps 70%, because I know a few professors who deserve the post due to their knowledge, skills and character.

For the 3rd, no one is complaining, right? It's up to the chief to share with co-workers, the benefits that he alone is in a position to receive; but based on their efforts. Thanks for the question, answering it is a clean job.

It is a remarkable fact that nobody older in age researcher has answered this question. Such a situation is by no way a matter of chance: Only young to medium age scientists have great difficulties with the 'science doors', older people:

1)either they believe that the above mentioned awful circumstance is a common practise (when you are inside the smells after a time period you don't smell anything bad)

2)or they have realized the futility of life and they don't bother anyway...

I'm older in age ;)))

@Demetris I am actually agree with you. You are right 100 percent, it is really sadly matter in science.

Alessandro, you do not seem older! (If you are, please send me by a pm your suggestions-secrets that explain your success in order to follow your paradigm!).

Dear Demetris as first I thank you for your kindness, as second I was born in Roma the 14 February 1959, thus I'm approaching 55 years, I have still 10 years of work then I will (if still on this earth) retire. Even if in the post-modern distorted perception a 55 year old person is considered 'relatively young' this is not true at all (and I'm happy of that !), I am married since 24 years and I have two daugthers 21 and 18 year old (THEY ARE YOUNG) respectively....the photo in my profile was shot by Irene, my younger daughter three years ago and I selected it because in the photo I look much better than what I am !!!!!

@Alessandro, I am 4 years older than You! :) @Demetris, I do not expect compliments. Beside, put your photo on RG profile. :)

Joking aside, it's a very ugly story. I can not quantify the percentage, but the science is going worse and worse every year! A lot of dirty jobs in science exist, no doubt!

@Ljubomir, I am a shy person... (I am joking, sorry but I don't want to make you feel unhappy, since I look much younger than what I am... :) )

As for the dirty percent, I think it is an increasing function of time and it will reach a higher level, who knows 90%? and then will stop increasing.

Dear Demetris: In my earlier post, I did mention that I know some professors who got their positions through knowledge, skills and hard work. One of them is my neighbour. She is a professor at Universiti Malaya, the oldest university in my country. She is single, in her 50's, leaves for work at 6 am, and comes home at around 10 pm each day, so that she doesn't waste time in the traffic jam. So there's nothing dirty here; as I also believe RG friends like Ljubomir, Allesandro, Andrzej etc etc are professors, nothing dirty in all this.

Just to share with you what Edison has said: 'Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes in overalls and look like work.' Let's do ALL we can to promote CLEAN science, it's our ONLY way to fight the dirty science :)

Dear Miranda, my concern is to highlight the gray zones and if necessary to promote scientist like your above mentioned who should be a paradigm. But keep in mind that most of them are not too old aged and this is not a coincidence: we the younger scientists have to clean the field, older are used to work there and cannot even recognize the dirty, they don't 'smell' it.

Thanks, Demetris. I can see your point :)

But what happens when the education systems are controlled by politicians? Even higher education in many countries are controlled in this way. On one of my threads Max had a comment. OK, please look up my questions where Max has placed his view on what happened in US.....

Dear Demetris. Probably the real problem not is the "dirt" of science but the "signal-noise" of science . What is the real "signal" of the science today and where is really the source.

Some part of the science, as well as all the human activities, belongs to the human ethic and to the human moral and in particular to the relationship between the single person with other similar (social-economic) and with his metaphisical part (religiuos); from this point of view I could agree with Alessandro Giuliani.

In my opinion the noise not is the always a bad thing, it depends of the source of noise. The mixing between the internal and the external sources of signal-noise in science is the basis of scientific development, it is the natural way with which the science advances. Also the noise contains signal and a superposition of noise produces signal: information.

When the external source is stranger to the science a contamination exists and the dirty science could be producted.

Mainly it depend on the accepted "new" paradigm that the science is "useful" when produces "only" the advantage for someone. Publishing companies, Researcher careers, Project funding competition, Politicians and stakeholder, Bureaucrats of science, Super-evaluators, Sellers of science excellence...and advantage positions.

We have accepted, i think rightly, that the science is a part of K-economy (knowledgement-economy, but for me, provided the receivable accounts and the debts must be also accepted at all.

When the scientific community agree to delegate some of its peculiar functions to the outside, renouncing to its politics and internal life, then you build the dirty science.

Young researchers are educated to the new paradigm; For example they think many times (obsession) to Impact-Factor, H-Factor, research performances and to the strange inventions of publishers which use them, as us, as battery chickens. The signal of science worsens. Is it the only manner to win a position or a project funding and what is the difference with respect to sell other things...?

Paradoxally the "new" paradigm is grown accepting a request from "external source" of the science. The guilt of "old-scientists" is to delegate their function accepting the "new paradigm" but the "new-scientists" have also accepted, accepting it as a chance to change the old system more oriented inside the scientific community in terms of aims, rules and functions. On the other hand the technological evolution of the science, also with its deviations, is normal.

The main issue today id the acceptation that the science is the investment from which it is expected the minimum risk to fail (A DEBT if does not produce anything): Incredible.

May be it the time to re-appropriate of our politic space and our internal scientific strategies in order to control-influence the external noise sources.

I hope that in the future the signal of quality will override the noise of dirt. At the moment the external noise is becoming deafening and confusing; it is the bad noise: disinformation. Publications and patents are growing exponentially it is "the multiplication of the bread and fish". Projects must produce results and products already prompt and the number and types of "deliverables" it must declared before: the science is treated as a montage line, that is acceptable and should be accepted probably only for applied-science when we have a product to reach. The scientists-bureaucrats contructed and are constructing a system apparently based on the excellence but only and really based on the power (know-how-do-it).

The "performance" of the science is reduced to and evaluation of productivity and as a consequence with minimum risk.

All we are referees of prestigious journals , we are in competition for our careers, we partecipate to the illusion to win the funding of a project with product already defined, we evaluate our collegues, we are involved in the recruitment of young researcher and evaluation of projects, all we belong to a scientific community. All togheter we can change.

Dear Roberto, you wrote an interesting analysis.

1)Could we define a signal to noise ratio for science, just like any other 'apparatus'? Take for example the 'dead publications', ie all those which have not even one citation after 20 years for example or with only self citations from their authors. Could we classify them to noise? If so, then we could define the next index:

S/N ratio of Science=#of properly cited articles/#of non cited articles

Probably we should define more indices based on your analysis.

2)The problem of self-reproducibility. Young researchers cannot escape from publication industry. It is a kind of 'mafia' and you cannot avoid being involved with it. Whenever you are being evaluated they ask you" How many publications have you done?" Nobody asks you: "How many new questions have you done?"

So, do not wait any progress in that field. (I have finished my Thesis and is not being accepted, among other reasons, because I have not done a formal publication in a formal journal, so ... how will the situation change?)

Your view is welcome.

We could introduce many indices to evaluate the signal-noise ratio but in this way we will continue to respond to an external source that forces the scientific community to use a "productivity" not managed internally but influenced by a scheme and strategies that are decided and induced externally to the scientific community which uniquely contributes with her endorsement on the quality(?) (quality check and control of peer-review, if it is "transparent"). It is like the "Response on demand" criterion.

Dimitres I am agree with the citation criterion. Probably it is useful to analyze how work the science system and to have a statistical image of an institution, structure, accademies etc., but is dangerous when you use it for evaluate or estimate the rank of a "researcher".

In my work of researcher, probably as the artists, I believed in some papers but the response of community (I am a Geophysicist) was not enthusiastic, and I will continue to think that the work should merit more attention. There are many examples of ideas, most fundamental of my, discovered by the communities after decades of the publication date. Is a question of "research fashion". For example for seventies and eighties the crustal-geodynamic exploration was a fashion, in the nineties the risks, now the environment and climate changes. The research fashion is similar to the Kuhnian paradigm but with a little difference that it govern not only the historical evolution of a discipline or a theory but it also decides the life or the death of a discipline or a research sector.

On the other hand I am completely, and greatly, agree with you that a good evaluation should start with a "right question" to the candidate and his capacity to propose the "right new questions", as you said. I am convinced that mature research is based on the "conscious ignorance", more than on the bibliometric indices, and only this induces the right questions and probably the signal of science.

Finally I want finish with a real joke: About two years ago, in a european research program I and other collegues have submitted a proposal, well the motivation of the refutation of proposal was because "it is ambitious but unfeasible". I was confused perhaps I had performed the application to the wrong place? Where if not in a research program you propose a new question or an "ambitious" new real challenge and probably "unfeasible" (we will see after if it is feasible).

I'd rather be really tested and evaluated on the real results I got, whether negative or positive, rather than on how I spent the money and time. Then I would be willing to take a one-time funding, if I wrong, for the rest of my life as a researcher.