The Quality of a Table: A Cautionary Tale of Good Science

THE QUALITY OF A TABLE: A CAUTIONARY TALE OF GOOD SCIENCE PETER SMITH* One day a postgraduate student studying interior design came to his supervisor with a problem. The student had no table to write at. The supervisor told the postgraduate to go away and to knock up a simple table for himself. Much to her surprise the student turned up a few weeks later with a very simply designed, very functional table that appeared to represent a significant advance in table design and was both cheap and easy to produce. This was the first thing of any quality that the student had produced. The supervisor knew that the student was desperately in need of some publications and that any publications would not harm her own CV. She suggested that the design be written up and submitted for publication . This was done. The two referees' reports were duly sent back to the supervisor. One acknowledged that although there were novel aspects to the design, they were not of major interest and suggested that the paper might be considered again if it was redrafted as a short communication. The second referee severely criticized the methods used in the paper. In particular, he noted that the details given regarding the chisels used in the work were totally inadequate and paid no attention to the recent developments in chisel technology. The response of the supervisor was to urge the student to make necessary modifications to the methods section of the paper. The student dashed off to the library, consulted on-line information systems and CD ROMs, collected papers, and did not bother the supervisor for some time. Months later, the supervisor asked the student for a report on this work. She was shocked when she heard of the developments in the chisel field that the student had uncovered. Clearly no one could expect to publish such work without including the details of the sharpness of *Fish Disease Group, Department of Microbiology, University College Galway, Galway, Ireland.© 1995 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 003 1-5982/95/390 1-0945$0 1 .00 204 Peter Smith ¦ A Tale of Good Science the chisels used. Machines for measuring chisel sharpness were expensive , and the supervisor did not have access to one. The supervisor dedicated herself to obtaining a grant that would allow the purchase of the necessary equipment. The grant was finally awarded. It was, in fact, quite a large grant, and the supervisor was able to buy the most sophisticated state-of-the-art equipment. The grant actually committed her group to work on a multinational program for the comparison ofchisel evaluation methods. The student was employed to service this grant. This was fortunate, because by this time his original postgraduate grant had run out. To the surprise of the supervisor, the student started to produce publishable work. They rapidly produced three papers, including two on the development of a computer program to process the information their chisel sharpness measurement equipment had generated in profusion . The supervisor did not actually understand computers very well, but because she had written the grant application she put her name on the papers anyway. The student gained his Ph.D. and a postdoctoral position in a top-flight university. More importantly, from the supervisor 's point of view, he left behind enough ideas for two more Ph.D.s who would use the department's newly acquired measuring equipment —which now incorporated laser technology and computer-linked scanning electron microscopy. This was very important for the supervisor, whose research career had taken off and who, as a consequence, was spending an increasing amount of her time on administrative duties. She was now on the editorial board of the journal that had rejected the original paper on table design. She found that she was continually forced to reject papers because they did not use appropriate methods and equipment. This worried her. Her concern for promoting good science led her to become a founding member of a pressure group that aimed to persuade the government to invest capital funds to facilitate the purchase of more up-to-date equipment in research laboratories. Attending meetings of a government...