Category Archives: Rants

Bad cover version

Posted on 12 July 2012 by rpg

Ever have one of those evenings? In the midst of following the conversation about an event at the Royal Society tonight, in which Vince Cable, Sir Paul Nurse and other luminaries discuss the future of science in the UK* (twitter … Continue reading →

Posted in Rants | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

On ghostwriting

Posted on 28 January 2012 by rpg

A long time ago, when the world was young, I did a research project towards my Biochemistry Part II exam. Three months in a lab, learning how to do cell culture, how not to kill myself with iodine-125, and making … Continue reading →

Posted in Rants | Tagged , | 11 Comments

For we all, like sheep

Posted on 5 August 2011 by rpg

Here the UK we have an “e-petition” website, where you can get get a bunch of like-minded people to sign up to your latest crazy idea and if you can find another 99,999 crazies then the Government has said it … Continue reading →

Posted in Rants, wibbling, you | Tagged , | 10 Comments

On writing papers

Posted on 22 February 2011 by rpg

One languid Sydney lunchtime I copied a particularly egregious paragraph from one of my co-authors and emailed it to my boss, with simply a ‘!’ for comment. A few minutes later his reply snuck sheepishly into my inbox, with the … Continue reading →

Posted in Literature, Rants | Tagged | 21 Comments

On peer review and trials by Twitter

Posted on 22 January 2011 by rpg

(Edited to add: just three seconds after hitting ‘publish’ I saw that Girl, Interrupting, has a very fine post making some of the same points. Please read that, too.) Towards the end of last year, the day job ran an … Continue reading →

Posted in F1000, Literature, Rants | Tagged , , , , | 21 Comments

Lost at Sea

Posted on 10 October 2010 by rpg

If I might be permitted an observation, there is something wrong when, in a forum expressly for the purpose of bug reports and feedback, a user’s perfectly valid comments are dismissed out of hand. It’s bad enough when an unaffiliated … Continue reading →

Posted in Rants | 7 Comments

On religion

Posted on 26 August 2010 by rpg

(I speak for myself. Although I am employed by Faculty of 1000 (F1000) and this post is about the company, I am not writing on behalf of F1000: this is my opinion only.) Somewhere on the internets the other day … Continue reading →

Posted in Rants | 20 Comments

On philosophy

Posted on 8 July 2010 by rpg

At this point Festus interrupted Paul’s defense. “You are out of your mind, Paul!” he shouted. “Your great learning is driving you insane.” Acts 26:24, NIV Theodore Zeldin is a philosopher. As far as I can work out, this means … Continue reading →

Posted in Internet, People, Rants | Tagged | 51 Comments

On impact factors

Posted on 22 June 2010 by rpg

They’re crap, aren’t they? Seriously. Jenny writes that scientists need metrics that reward effort as well as luck. While that’s true, we also need metrics that aren’t capricious and as susceptible to gaming. At the day job, Bob Grant (no … Continue reading →

Posted in Literature, Rants | Tagged | 23 Comments