On Tue, 20 May 2008 06:29:11 -0700, Christopher D. Green wrote: >Interesting item in today's /Inside Higher Ed/ about giving the same >presentation at more than one conference. >http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/05/20/double
One issue that this article raises is what is the purpose of making a presentation? One answer is that it serves the same purpose as publication, that is, to establish priority in producing a research finding. If one is presenting the same research results, even somewhat modified, what is the scientific justification? I understand the social and cultural forces at work in this situation, one of which is to maintain visibility in a particular community as well as showing to someone (i.e., one's peers, one's departmental chair, one's academic dean, etc.) that one is being productive. But we're now dealing with the sociology of science (perhaps the philosophy of science) instead of science per se. Although the article refers only to research on political scientists I think one might find similar and perhaps more flagrant examples involving multiple presentation/publications in the biomedical research area (e.g., "preliminary results", results presented to conferences sponsored by funding agencies, professional conferences, invited addresses, etc.). Perhaps we should distinguish among presentations that are made to establish scientific priority and other purposes, such as job talks, invited presentations/colloquia, etc. Then again, the question arises about whether this is consistently done with publications (e.g., publication in a empirical research journal versus Scientific American magazine versus some other popular magazine and so on). -Mike Palij New York University [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
