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Published online 28 October 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/4551161a
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Older scientists publish more papers
Age is no barrier to productivity.
If the mind is the first to go, it doesn't seem to show up in the bibliography. A new study suggests that older scientists publish more than their younger counterparts.
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They don't seem to consider that older professors have larger research groups, i.e. more underlings to actually write the papers. Perhaps a better photo to illustrate the story would be the aged professor in their office wielding a red pen over their students' manuscripts.
Well, the older professors are also more established and have more connections, and therefore can participate in both small and large collaborative projects. No offence, but this survey only seems to prove an already obvious point.
Usually the older scientists have many students as assistants.Without their help,older scientists can't produce many papers.But I agree to the view that it is better to keep researchers and let them work because they have very rich experience.
It is true that older scientists publish more research papers. It is the testimony of their continued research commitment over decades in their chosen field of research. More and more experienced in their own field of research their understanding and analysis of the facts will be more than new entrants to that area of research. Older scientists should be encouraged to do research by providing sufficient funds by the respective organizations in order to get good things out of their research contribution.
Yes I do agree with the above study. But we should understand one point; most of the older scientist will be famous in their respective fields. I agree that their papers are getting published in good journals and have good scientific values with more citation index. I am afraid, younger scientist may not get same treatment even for a better paper from the reviewers. Will you agree with me if I put the name ?paradigm shift factor? for the above discrepancy? Posted by: Biju
i think older scientist should tired,but it doesn't mean they will give up their work,and i think we should give the yongger scientists more chances ,because they always have more new ideas that are surprising.and i think the older scientist can help the yongger scientist
The older scientists are actually those, who remain committed to research, and derive pleasure by working and publishing; among younger scientists there are also those, who do science for livelihood, and not for their love for science. The younger scientists form a heterogenous group, while older are only those, who can not live without working (most of them are perhaps wokoholics; they dont have to continue working due to pressure of job). Therefore, it is true that funds made available to older scientists (based on their productivity) will be profitably utilized. Pushpendra K. Gupta, India
yes,it's true,they have more experience and they have less pressure. so they can do more what they like
My view about this as a young scientist is that established researchers tend to know each other, have a wider sphere of interaction and generally more respected in their fields as a function of longevity in service. My experience is that many reviewers tend to be too critical if a name is new in a field. Secondly, even funding bodies allocate more fundings to largely established groups which are usually run by older researchers while younger researchers with the brightest ideas usually have a really tough time to start off. For example, if you are not a PI in the UK, the research councils here may not fund you! I do not find this study to be scientifically balanced because they don't seemed to have addressed the issues that would have let to such differences.
Can one rule out that the comparatively low publication record of the younger sicentists is due to the fact that some of them are not so well-performing while others are? The underperformers may not stay in science. Only the well-performing ones will survive and they will later form the group of well-publishing professors when they are in their 50s and 60s. I think such a study can only be valid if it traces back the publication record of many scientists who are now in their 50s and 60s. I am almost certain that a scientist who is publishing well today (in quantitative terms) has also published equally well in his 30s and 40s. In qualitative terms (and impact factor) the papers should improve with age because most (but not all) mistakes will have been made at a certain moment in life ;-).
This news story is almost offensive. The system forces young scientists to remain working for older scientists. Such precarious situation results in the young scientist having to comply with unfair publication policies. These are not always explicit, but one does not want to risk a future position because of a poor reference from your previous boss. Very often, the head of group will simply proofread an article before submission, with most of the ideas and hard work coming from the young scientists. On my experience, the work of old scientists is generally much less innovative than that of the young scientists. Quite frankly, it is embarrasing that Nature highlights such a poor study. At the very least, the authors should have tried to introduce a correction to account for unfair publication policies, such as dividing publication outcome of an old scientist by the number of members in the group.
All of us think in the same way. How old are the researchers that published this papers. Compare versus post-docs, students, grants...
I strongly agree with the comment made by Claus Schwechheimer who states that "a scientist who is publishing well today (in quantitative terms) has also published equally well in his 30s and 40s" This has certainly been true in my career. I think that scientists in their 50's and 60's have picked up a wealth of experiences by dint of just still being around! The advantages that older scientists can bring to an organization are many not least of which include helping to mentor the next generation of excellent scientists.
Two things. First, publishing more papers is quite different than doing good research. It is unfortunate that in our time the list of publications has become the measure of the productivity and research of a person and as result of it people use various unfair means to increase their list of publications. Like submitting the same paper to different journals with small modifications, or republishing their work in the same journal with small or no modifications, plagiarism and so on. Second, most journals consider papers for publications not only on the basis of the content of the papers but on the basis of the affiliation of the authors and their status in the research community. As a result of this papers submitted by senior people are easily considered for publications in comparison to junior or new people. The face of the scientific publications (and science also) may change drastically if the names of the authors are not disclosed to the referees until the final decision about the publication. I know this will increase the workload of publication agencies but this will help scientific publications to become more objective and of course it will be good for science in the long run. I also agree with the point that senior people have bigger groups (or they are a member of more groups) and as a result they get authorship of more publications irrespective to their actual contribution.
It would be interesting to know the position of their names in byline in the papers. I have an odd feeling that most would just have got their names in the third or fourth for obvious reasons!
How many of those "older" scientists have papers in their 50's-60's with their single name (without students or post-docs)? This would give some better answer to their creativity. Creativity is not just adding ones name to a long list of students or colleagues. Pity to see Nature reporting such a "study".
This survey gives a confused/highly distorted picture about creativity of older scientist.Creativity is not just adding ones name to a long list of students or colleagues. Such practices by older scientist/outstanding scientists publishing papers in the larger groups of authors (groups of more than 3 authors) should be banned.It clearly reflects their mean mentality.Such the so called outstanding persons are suckers.Pity to see Nature reporting such a "study".Such acts are shameful and need to condemn.
The comments pointed out instantly the fallacy of the argument. The fact is that there is enormous variation in the extent to which older scientists make contributions to the work themselves. But the invidious practice of guest authorship can actually start quite young. There is no easy way to correct for it without knowing much more than is apparent from the paper. At least it would be nice to see the results normalised for group size, though even that would clearly be imperfect. I guess that I'm lucky to work in an area where the mathematics, and the computer programs that are based on it, are crucial for the work, so it's possible to make contributions without being at the bench, even at 72.
Others make the good point that in studies of this type one needs to take into account the number of authors and authorship position (placement within the list of authors). Amount of research funding is important as well. Suppose older, more-established researchers tend to get larger grants. Not only would they have more research personnel to generate ideas, conduct research and co-produce papers but also their team would have access to more and better equipment, materials and supplies. /// I once examined the correlation between amount of research funding available to medical researchers and their production of research papers. As is the case with the present study, I did not control for all relevant variables so my findings are not scientifically sound. Nevertheless, for what its worth, I found that productivity per grant dollar decreased as grant size increased. /// Intuitively I would guess that, when all variables are considered, age has little influence on one's ability to contribute to new knowledge.
During earlier part of one?s career many factor influences his/her publication track record, besides intelligence, determination etc. During early part of one?s career, we do research mainly on some ongoing project where our work is designed and guided by senior faculties. Depending on supervisor?s scientific productivity, scientific ethics and publication track record, our own publication record is affected. If you work with a person and/or in a project that produced no publication after working there for some years, it does spoil your career and publication track record without much fault of yours. This is particularly true in current research system in USA where mentoring is almost absent (the fact accepted by NSF and NIH). Generally Postdocs and PhD students are exploited just to crank data as technicians. Very few labs/faculty allow a young postdocs or PhD students to grow and groom them as scientists. When that young person realizes the problem of the system and change him/her-self to stay in the system, s/he become a bit older with a less impressive publication track record. Secondly, Low salary, pathetic working condition (long working hours, less paid leave and other benefits) in many of the labs force many talented people not to join research in the first place (as in developed countries) and force many young scientists (young postdocs and PhD students) to seek a more rewarding career elsewhere, may be in industries where publication is not that important. It leaves only few dedicated people with initial success and/or strong determination to remain in academic research. This fact also influences such survey besides other facts mentioned in previous messages.
I've just realized that all the talk of creativity in the article is about creativity in writing grant applications. Any questions?
ANOTHER SIGN OF LOSING YOUTH IN SCIENCE ------ History has repeatedly shown that greatest discoveries were often made by scientists at their youthful ages of 20-30. History also showed that scientists often do not make any greater discoveries later after they become great scientists. Is this history going to be re-written because the "discovery" of "older scientists publish more papers"?/////No! I don't think so. This is because publication does not equal discovery. Even flawed and fraud stuff can be published now and many times in high-profile in "top" journals. So if one does a study on retractions one may find that older scientists retracted more papers, using corresponding authors not the actual junior discoverer as the owner of the paper. But does that mean older scientists are vulnerable to flaws and even fraud? NO! I don't think so, either.///// Old scientists or, more correctly to say, well-established scientists (in terms of funding support, positional privileges, social connections, etc.) publish more simply because they have been given more opportunities to publish. Some journals or some sections of the journals are reserved for those established (thus must be some kind old) scientists. Many times the invitations for writing those "commissioned" papers were actually performed by the junior member(s) in the senior author's team (lab, office, or whatever name).////// Thus, high publication productivity does not necessarily mean more scientific contributions. We need to ask how many of those publications are original discoveries? How many of those original discoveries are the discoveries of the senior authors? Thinking from another perspective, we may ask why "productivity" of older scientists suddenly drops at 60s? Was it really due to the mandatory retirement or due to the loss of their privileges in publishing?////// It is sad the introduction of a flawed impact factor has exerted such a great negative impact on the culture of our scientific research and forced many scientists to live in an environment of "publishing or perish". Frankly to say, the primary goal of many scientists is no longer making discovery but making impact. This is because without any impactful publication, the chance of staying in a research career is greatly reduced. If one make a great discovery but that discovery is disliked by the powerful controlling scientific publishing, then one's scientific career may be ruined if s/he does to publish that discovery even if s/he can find some alternative ways of publishing.////// Discovery can come only with a finding of truth. However, impact can be generated in many different ways. Pushing the hot buttons, riding on the trends and even completely fakery can led to high impact publications. Seasoned scientists (old or young alike) can publish one hundred of papers on a same discovery by writing various types of papers for various different journals (original report, reviews, views, perspectives, commentary, and even news). However, all that one hundred papers may means nothing to science if that single ?discovery? turned out to be a misunderstanding or even worse, a fakery.////// So please do not use any RAW number of publications as a measure of productivity. Please stop playing the impact factor game. Let science return to its normal research environment and give scientists more opportunity in publishing at their prime ages of making discoveries.///// Shi V. Liu (SVL@logibio.com; http://im1.biz)
This is a phenomenon that can be compared to the food chain principle what we have studied in ecology. Here knowledge assimilated keeps compounding
Of course they do! The system is pyramidal. Was money actually spent here?
I am 88 years old.I am happy that some of my younger colleagues(in their 40's and 60's) are kind enough to make me believe that my long experience might be useful and add my name in some of their papzrs! 1st Nov,2008 Georges Cohen
Its already well known fact that professor's have large groups with international colloborations, so they publish more than the younger counterparts! The people who have done the survey have wasted time and public money!.
I am amused, and at the same time horrified, at some of the comments made by those who are obviously grad students or postdocs: writing as a senior scientist (well, over 50 anyway) who gets his name on a number of papers he did not write, I feel I must point out a few realities to the aggrieved younger folk who seem to feel that (a) older scientists are not innovative, (b) they do not deserve to be co-authors with those who "do the work". Shi Liu above makes this comment: "Please stop playing the impact factor game. Let science return to its normal research environment and give scientists more opportunity in publishing at their prime ages of making discoveries". Has Dr/Ms/Mr Liu and have others considered that someone else may have provided the environment that allows people at their prime ages to do the work in the first place? That research and publishing experience in a field may actually be quite a good predictor for continuing success, and therefore for funding? And that an older person may have these qualities - and provide the safe haven for younger folk to DO the exciting things that lead to the publications that the older folk mould and correct and get published? Speaking for myself, I have a simple rule: if I got or facilitated the funding AND provided a significant measure of the supervision of a piece of work AND had a significant hand in formulating a manuscript, I get to be the communicating (and generally last) author. I regard this as fair for the simple reasons that (a) the work wouldn't have happened without my getting the funding, (b) I will have had a serious influence on how it was done, (c) my experience in writing mss will have helped get it published. On the other hand, I am more than happy when my former students / present junior colleagues value my expertise enough to ask me to vet a manuscript in a subject area that I am considered an expert - and put me in a junior authorship position. And I do not take it as a matter of right, which is still an unfortunate situation in many institutions. It is also an unfortunate circumstance that the facts origin of research projects often get lost in just a few years, and often within the tenure of a single postgrad or postdoc: I call it the "stupid parent" syndrome, and as the father of a 16-yr-old son, it is something I am very familiar with in teh home as well as in the lab. Folks: your supervisor most often will have originated your research project. That means they knew enough to hypothesise sufficiently well to get the funding that got you employed and that keeps you busy. The fact that they now generally live through you and other students / researchers is simply part of the natural evolution of a researcher: from lab rat through writer to supervisor. And it will happen to you too - if you are good enough...B-)
PS: and older scientists do write single-author papers: they are called "reviews".
I agree that "Age is no barrier to productivity" but productivity of Older Scientists depend on his/her team, which mainly includes younger brains!
Go young scientist dont be left behind...
"Age is no barrier to productivity" is true for all ages and number of publications depends on the environment of the working places and attitude and scientific spirit of supervisors and higher authority in the laboratories, organised sector/government sector. Scientific process transends barriers as knowledge has no boundary. Unfortunately these days some Directors/ higher authorities in laboratories and organised sectors have a tendency to curb others biodata assigning work of less publication value using various functional advantage/adequecy. Greatness with transparent mind in search of truth in life is a real-time rider for scientific finding in papers unlike plagiarism in science affecting scientific values and science itself these days.