Re: minimums

From
Date
Reply-To
I agree with most of the preceding discussion on the status of ancDNA
publications, but thought I'd try to add a slightly different perspective
on the matter.

Two of the key questions being discussed are A) when to publish, and B)
what "spin" (for lack of a better word) to put on the results. To clarify
"B" a little bit, I mean that many results in ancDNA are somewhat
ambiguous, leaving room for  people to disagree on how to phrase/present
the results (e.g. the debate over Woodward et al's dinoDNA). I'd suggest
that how an individual handles these two questions, in practice, depends a
lot on external ("non-scientific") factors.

The main external factor is the current environment for science, which is
very competitive.  Faculty jobs in the sciences are drawing record number
of applicants, and the number of eternal postdocs is growing. Competition
for funding is also increasing, with an ever-lower percentage of grants
getting funded.  This environment puts a premium on "success" as measured
by "hot" publications in the top journals and getting grants (which are
certainly related to each other).

So, even if you're a very careful worker, there is a great deal of pressure
on you to put the absolute best "spin" on your results that you can, and to
publish them in the biggest journal you can. This is particularly true of
ancDNA work where, really, a certain outcome to the experiment (no definite
authentic DNA) does not really tell you much. I'm all for publishing
negative results but, esp. for scientists in the earlier phases of their
career, getting such results can be near-fatal. I agree that,
scientifically, negative results are equally important and nothing to be
ashamed of. But, practically, how would you react to a grad student who
gets no verifiable (or iffy) ancDNA in their dissertation project? Or an
applicant for a faculty position that has only published say, one "probably
ancDNA" paper, one "maybe ancDNA" paper, and three "no ancDNA" papers, all
in smaller journals? Your success rate at getting ancDNA can even influence
access to museum-held material.

Even for more established scientists, the pressures of funding can
influence the publishing/spin decisions. Some ancient DNA grants by the NSF
are above $150,000 (US). You want to tell the NSF panel that you spent
$150k and came up empty-handed? Or with only a publication in a small,
non-peer-reviewed newsletter that even paid subscribers don't receive?
Think you'd get another shot at an NSF grant anytime real soon if you did?
(These same pressures do operate in other fields, such as human
paleontology. In that field, similar pressures led one worker, desperate
for a hominid from his site to justify the funding, to describe a dolphin
rib as a hominid clavicle.)

Now, despite the above, I agree with Dr. Lipps that:
>A careful worker will not rush to publication with poor and
>undefensible data and hypotheses.

But I suspect that, in the current environment, careful and cautious
ancient DNA researchers (esp. of the younger variety) are being selected
against.

Sincerely,
David DeGusta
Laboratory for Human Evolutionary Studies
University of California, Berkeley
degusta@uclink.berkeley.edu