Stakhanov and Secrets of Nature

Preface. I recall that in the distant 1980s in our area it was considered quite worthy to write one good article in a year and a half. But the article, requiring one and a half years of work, was a whole world: something like an Egyptian pyramid, a palace, a temple or a hippodrome-with a general idea, a harmonious (sometimes non-trivial) structure, well-developed details that reflect the idea and twisting each other with each other, which created a special acoustics. As a rule, in such an article, the task was completely solved, sometimes even with generalizations. In general, the semantic unit was precisely the task (problem, a cycle of tasks), not an article.

It was possible to solve three scattered small tasks and publish a note for each. But the contribution of the one who solved a difficult problem (and usually printed one article-when voluminous, when the laconic) was evaluated as incomparably more significant.

Everyone remembered the Stakhanov movement and understood that the assessment of achievements by quantity was the path to emasculation and profanity. Then more cynical times came, and gradually forgot about it.

Now questions to yourself and the like.

1. If we agree that science is an ant heap, on the top of which the most valuable and laborious results ...

If we agree that science should meet with open arms to meet everyone ready to sacrifice the number of works for their quality ...

If we understand that the market need to publish as many articles as possible makes their adequate reviews impossible, so from a good magazine you get 5 reviews, each 5 -length not very responsible phrases, because the reviewers have no time to delve into details ...

If we see that this corrosion has already affected “top” magazines, so researchers trying to confirm the results published there in one of the most important areas of experimental medicine are convinced that only a small share of these results is reproduced (their conclusion is the reasonable system of academic stimuli) ... - then why we put up with a quantitative assessment in science that succeeds in this way that produces all this imitation and profanity?

Our “local” answer is this: because the alternative is an expert assessment, in our conditions almost identical corruption.

2. But if we see that both of these alternatives (quantitative and “expert”-corruption) are infinitely bad, then why are we not working without turning hands, creating a real examination and an institution of scientific reputation in our areas?

3. If we realize that the closer to the top of the murdered muraneine, the more strange, eccentric, uncomfortable people, like Peter Higgs or Grigory Perelman ...

If we know that the existing assessment system from all floors of an anthill is washing such people ...

If we agree that science, if you look at it as a market, can be compared with the automobile market, where the competition is not uniform, and the visual - from the segment of serial cheap machines to special segments, racing pains and luxury ...

- Why don’t we advocate a variable assessment, namely: to be appreciated high, it is enough to either write a lot of routine articles, or few exclusive, or useful review monographs, or, finally, to be an organizer, a communicator, a nonsense reviewer, who write little, but who knows much and does not spare time to delve into other people's works and criticize them?

Maybe nature has found a way to protect their main secrets by introducing scientists to the excitement of cockroaches?

Pavel Chebotarev,
doct. physical. sciences, head. Laboratory of the Institute of Problems of Management of the Russian Academy of Sciences