tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3164804243040726299.post1151272545729722423..comments2024-03-19T06:40:22.220-04:00Comments on The EEB & Flow: The four types of failure, or how to fail in scienceMarc Cadottehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08335319636148357534noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3164804243040726299.post-10092144610264728342011-10-18T10:07:50.234-04:002011-10-18T10:07:50.234-04:00What a most depressing title.What a most depressing title.lannajinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16919079579374500591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3164804243040726299.post-66129577776074949092011-10-18T10:06:00.389-04:002011-10-18T10:06:00.389-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.lannajinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16919079579374500591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3164804243040726299.post-60908833219572688732011-10-05T08:49:43.774-04:002011-10-05T08:49:43.774-04:00Your example of Diamond (1975) is a good example o...Your example of Diamond (1975) is a good example of a productive failure. Prompted both a very useful conceptual/methodological debate that had a long-lasting effect on ecologists (though the effect eventually wore off), and ultimately led to sustained experimental effort to measure competition in the field.Jeremy Foxhttp://oikosjournal.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3164804243040726299.post-84434374212823452142011-10-05T06:55:04.046-04:002011-10-05T06:55:04.046-04:00Hey Jeremy- thanks for your comments! It was defin...Hey Jeremy- thanks for your comments! It was definitely an ambitious topic for a post, so I'm not surprised that some of the details might be arguable. Some of the work out of Dan Cohen's lab (1994 in Plant Species Biology) seems to precede Chesson and Huntly, but received about 4 citations, so that was what I had in mind. However, he was certainly a successful scientist in evolutionary ecology, so I didn't want to name him and make him sound like he had "failed". That said, propably both our labs do give Chesson and Huntly's paper more importance than most ecologists.<br /><br />I totally agree with your last points about the difference between productive failures and unproductive failures, however I'd disagree about which category Webb and Hubbell's works fall into. I would be curious as to what works you'd consider as productive failures?Caroline Tuckerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09319215430054509345noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3164804243040726299.post-2700258877610557172011-10-05T00:30:14.496-04:002011-10-05T00:30:14.496-04:00Very interesting post, but I would quibble with so...Very interesting post, but I would quibble with some details. In particular, what little-cited papers are you thinking of that preceded Chesson and Huntly? Because I can think of some MUCH-cited papers that preceded them--Hutchinson 1961, for starters! (that Hutchinson had incorrect reasons for claiming that envi. variation promotes coexistence does not mean he didn't make the claim, or that no one noticed his claim) Further, while I think it's great that you and the folks in your lab take Chesson and Huntly '97 as a landmark paper (so do I), the truth is that folks who do are a small minority of all ecologists. Take it from me, Chesson and Huntly unfortunately failed to kill off, or even make much of a dent in, the zombie ideas they were attacking. Their paper, not related papers preceding it, is an example of a great paper not getting the attention it deserves.<br /><br />As for "productive failures" like Hubbell's neutral theory or Webb et al.'s ideas about phylogenetic relatedness and coexistence, there's definitely a debate to be had about the difference between productive failures (false ideas that prompt much research of lasting value), mere fads (ideas that prompt much research of no lasting value), and unproductive failures (false ideas that prompt much research of no lasting value, thereby distracting attention from more productive avenues and wasting everyone's time, money, and effort). I agree there are such things as productive failures, but I'm not sure I agree that Hubbell 2001 or Webb et al. 2002 are good examples. I would argue, for instance, that much of the research prompted by Hubbell involves ecologists "learning the hard way"--that is, relearning things that evolutionary biologists learned decades ago, such as what kind of data can or cannot detect non-zero selection coefficients.Jeremy Foxhttp://oikosjournal.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3164804243040726299.post-49754919694457804052011-10-04T22:52:19.636-04:002011-10-04T22:52:19.636-04:00Nice post. I wonder if in the current scientific w...Nice post. I wonder if in the current scientific world filled with blogging and tweeting, if some papers will be cited and read more than others due to how much the author(s) advertise their paper on blogs, twitter, and the like. <br /><br />Heather Piwowar's research in PLoS One suggested that papers with open source data are cited more than papers that don't provide their data.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01944150859555101169noreply@blogger.com