Reader Comments

Post a new comment on this article

A broad consensus on performance in science

Posted by Mietchen on 06 Jul 2010 at 13:07 GMT

Remarkably, at least in the context of sports, there is usually a broad consensus on who are the top performers and on what qualifies as an outstanding performance.
http://plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0010937#article1.front1.article-meta1.abstract1.sec1.p1

In the context of sports, there are usually clear goals, clear rules (with which the audience is generally familiar), and considerable in-depth coverage (often live, and with loads of different and reproducible impact measures) by the mass media, since competitions take place in public by default.

I think it would be interesting to explore whether such conditions would be sufficient to reach a broad consensus on who the top performers are in science.

I suspect, though, that this would not be the most interesting aspect of such an open science system.

No competing interests declared.