Yes, friends, not only is math hard for Barbie but apparently it is also hard for biologists. Some recently published research shows that articles that have many equations in them get cited less often than those articles without equations. Unbelievable! One popular media account of the research is available here: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/06/26/even-some-scientists-are-math-challenged
The original article appears in PNAS and here is the abstract: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/06/22/1205259109.abstract?sid=91877d92-d0f9-41d7-8191-3322f01cb540 Quoting from the abstract: |The density of equations in an article has a significant negative impact |on citation rates, with papers receiving 28% fewer citations overall for |each additional equation per page in the main text. These results are based on articles in journals on ecology and evolution. I'm sure that these results don't hold for psychologists because we are a statistically literate and research savvy bunch. By the way, what did people think of Shin & Raudenbush's article on "Confidence Bounds and Power for the Reliability of Observational Measures on the Quality of a Social Setting" in the latest issue of Psychometrika? True story: a couple of decades ago in a graduate learning class I used an article from the Journal of Mathematical Psychology which was an overview of mathematical theories of learning. After looking at the sick look on their faces (indicating that they thought that the article was probably unreadable because of the math), I said "Cheer up! At least you can say that you're actually read an article in the Journal of Math Psych!". For some reason this did not cheer them up. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] P.S. True Story #2: In graduate school, a fellow grad student in a subarea that will go unidentified, remarked that when he read a research article, he read the introduction and discussion and assumed that the researchers knew what they were doing in the method and results section. It is this kind of keen critical curiosity and inquiry that has made psychology what it is today, IMHO. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=18651 or send a blank email to leave-18651-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
