I am often frustrated reading research papers in geophysics that seem to involve total obfuscation and much mathematical ado about what in the end turns out to be some pretty basic, straightforward research. At times I seriously doubt whether the amount of energy I invest in reading these papers is worth what I learn from reading them.
Recently my colleague, John Ebel, shared with me a Boston Globe article about an economist who confessed that he intentionally made a paper he wrote pointlessly complicated so that it would get accepted for publication. This article provides data to support my suspicion that this insidious phenomenon is widespread across disciplines.
“An Economist's Confession: I Have Sinned Against Clarity”,
by Christopher Shea, http://tinyurl.com/y9kvqpx
Shea writes: “At least David R. Hakes, an economist at Northern Iowa University, has the courage to admit what he did: He purposefully made an article pointlessly complicated, hoping that peacock-tail math and dense prose would impress other academics (or, at least, that other economists would pretend to be impressed, so they wouldn't be tagged as unsophisticated).”
Hakes also admits that in the end, he could no longer understand his own paper, and would not have been able to give a talk on it without assistance. He concludes that “the time and effort necessary to read [his own] paper may exceed the benefits received from reading it.”
How is it that the emperor has been able to go on wearing his new clothes for so long?
Saturday, October 3, 2009
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