Against the Tide. A Critical Review by Scientists of How Physics and Astronomy Get Done

Nobody should have a monopoly of the truth in this universe. The censorship and suppression of challenging ideas against the tide of mainstream research, the blacklisting of scientists, for instance, is neither the best way to do and filter science, nor to promote progress in the human knowledge. The removal of good and novel ideas from the scientific stage is very detrimental to the pursuit of the truth. There are instances in which a mere unqualified belief can occasionally be converted into a generally accepted scientific theory through the screening action of refereed literature and meetings planned by the scientific organizing committees and through the distribution of funds controlled by "club opinions". It leads to unitary paradigms and unitary thinking not necessarily associated to the unique truth. This is the topic of this book: to critically analyze the problems of the official (and sometimes illicit) mechanisms under which current science (physics and astronomy in particular) is being administered and filtered today, along with the onerous consequences these mechanisms have on all of us.\ud \ud The authors, all of them professional researchers, reveal a pessimistic view of the miseries of the actual system, while a glimmer of hope remains in the "leitmotiv" claim towards the freedom in doing research and attaining an acceptable level of ethics in science

Long-term careers of astronomers with doctoral degrees from prestigious vs. non-prestigious universities

A comparison has been made of the long-term careers of complete samples of astronomers who earned their PhD's at one prestigious (P) and one nonprestigious (NP) university. The sample sizes are 106 (degrees 1952-88) and 94 (degrees 1966-88) respectively. For both groups, the vast majority are still engaged in some aspect of astronomy or closely related sciences (90% and 74% respectively). But the fraction still engaged primarily in astronomical research and advanced teaching at PhD-granting universities and observatories is 65% for the prestigious and only 32% for the non-prestigious institution. The half-lives as members of the research publishing community are more than 30 yr vs. less than 20 yr for P vs. NP astronomers. Very little of the difference is attributable to the different distributions of dates of degrees in the two samples. A subsample of the P astronomers age-matched to the NP ones has 66% still engaged is astronomical research and advanced teaching; a large difference in publishing half-lives also persists in the subsamples with degrees since 1966. © 1991 Akadémiai Kiadó

Exploring gender bias in six key domains of academic science: an adversarial collaboration

Claims of gender bias in academic science have been widely published, including general descriptions of systemic societal factors that limit women—such as their roles as primary parents and caregivers—and more specific statements asserting sexism at key evaluation points of academic careers. We comprehensively reviewed the evidence in published research regarding differential treatment by gender for six key evaluation domains in the tenure-track academy: hiring, grant funding, journal acceptances, teaching ratings, recommendation letters, and salary, over a 20-year period (2000 to 2020). We focused on these specific domains because they are readily operationalizable and they are represented across a vast literature available for quantitative analysis. Contrary to omnipresent claims in top journals and the media, we found that tenure-track women are at parity with men in three domains (U.S. grant funding, journal acceptances, and recommendation letters), and women are advantaged over men in the domain of hiring. However, for teaching ratings and salary, we found evidence of bias against women. In the four domains in which we failed to find evidence of bias against women, we nevertheless acknowledge that broad societal structural factors may still impede women’s advancement in academic science. We suggest that efforts and resources to combat bias be redirected and focused on domains in which empirically demonstrable bias actually persists.Published versio

North-South Knowledge Networks

Since the 1990s, internationalisation has become key for institutions wishing to secure funding for higher education and research. For the academic community, this strategic shift has had many consequences. Priorities have changed and been influenced by new ways of thinking about universities, and of measuring their impact in relation to each other and to their social goals. Debates are ongoing and hotly contested. In this collection, a mix of renowned academics and newer voices reflect on some of the realities of international research partnerships. They both question and highlight the agency of academics, donors and research institutions in the geopolitics of knowledge and power. The contributors offer fresh insights on institutional transformation, the setting of research agendas, and access to research funding, while highlighting the dilemmas researchers face when their institutions are vulnerable to state and donor influence. Offering a range of perspectives on why academics should collaborate and what for, this book will be useful to anyone interested in how scholars are adapting to the realities of international networking and how research institutions are finding innovative ways to make North–South partnerships and collaborations increasingly fair, sustainable and mutually beneficial