http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/09/make_mine_a_double.html
Make mine a double - September 15, 2010
There have been
<http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100813/full/news.2010.406.html>some
radical suggestions to increase citation counts
of late but heavy drinking would probably rank at
the bottom of most researchers' lists.
Yet a new study has found that the world's most
highly cited ecologists and environmental
scientists typically consume more than double the
amount imbibed by the general population.
<http://www.springerlink.com/content/j5205442788316v6/>Published
in the October issue of
<http://www.springerlink.com/content/j5205442788316v6/>Scientometrics,
John Parker, a post-doctoral sociologist at the
National Center for Ecological Analysis and
Synthesis at the University of California, Santa
Barbara, and colleagues report the results of a
survey of the drinking habits of 124 of the most
highly cited researchers in ecology and
environmental science: the vast majority men aged
between 50 and 70 based in either North America or Western Europe.
The results reveal that consumption for this
group averages around 7 alcoholic beverages per
week, about 2.5 drinks over the weekly
consumption of the average American. Though a
fifth of the group does not drink, more than half
consume 10 or more alcoholic beverages a week,
20% consume 12 or more and 10% consumer 21 or
more. The largest consumer downed 31 per week.
The researchers are quick to point out the
obvious - correlation does not equal causation.
We are definitely not saying 'drink more to do
better', Parker stresses. But he does believe
that more and better information is needed to
unravel the observed relationship and the
non-scientific activities that affect scientific productivity.
The results support the positive association
between national per capita beer consumption and
a country's citations per paper reported
<http://www.springerlink.com/content/lp34234k59473xkt/>in
a 2009 paper by Canadian ecologist Christopher
Lortie, who collaborated with Parker on the current paper.
But they stand in contrast to a
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0030-1299.2008.16551.x/abstract>2008
survey of Czech ecologists by Thomas Grim, also
an ecologist. Grim, based at Palacky University
in the Czech Republic, found the opposite: that
increased levels of beer consumption were
associated with lower numbers of citations.
Because of well documented negative and causal
effects of ethanol, independently of dose, on
both mental performance and health, I find it
unlikely that the Parker et al. finding reflects
more than a spurious relationship, Grim told Nature News.
Eminent Oxford ecologist Bob May a lifelong
teetotaller also said he did not recognise
Parker's picture. My experience is that my
ecologist friends are not at all heavy drinkers.
Michael Hochberg from the University of
Montpellier in France speculated on why if this
were so highly cited researchers might be
pushed to drink more. They might attend more
functions, be more stressed out, or they may
just be past their heyday and drowning their sorrows, he suggested.
