dc.contributor.author | Higginson, AD | |
dc.contributor.author | Fawcett, TW | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2016-11-21T11:09:21Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2016-11-11 | |
dc.description.abstract | In 2012, we showed that the citation count for articles in ecology and evolutionary biology declines
with increasing density of equations. Kollmeret al (2015 New J. Phys. 17 013036) claim this effect is an
artefact of the manner in which we plotted the data. They also present citation data from Physical
Review Letters and argue, based on graphs, that citation counts are unrelated to equation density. Here
we show that both claims are misguided. We identified the effects in biology not by visual means, but
using the most appropriate statistical analysis. Since Kollmeret al did not carry out any statistical
analysis, they cannot draw reliable inferences about the citation patterns in physics. We show that
when statistically analysed their data actually do provide evidence that in physics, as in biology, citation
counts are lower for articles with a high density of equations. This indicates that a negative relationship
between equation density and citations may extend across the breadth of the sciences, even those in
which researchers are well accustomed to mathematical descriptions of natural phenomena. We
restate our assessment that this is a genuine problem and discuss what we think should be done
about it. | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | This work was supported by a European Research Council Advanced Grant (250209) awarded to Alasdair
Houston and NERC Independent Research Fellowship (NE/L011921/1) awarded to ADH. We are indebted to
the American Physical Society and Physical Review Letters for granting access to their article data and Jonathan
Kollmer, Thorsten Pöschel and Jason Gallas for supplying it. | en_GB |
dc.identifier.citation | Vol 18 (2016) 118003 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1088/1367-2630/18/11/118003 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/24514 | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | IOP Publishing | en_GB |
dc.rights | Original content from this
work may be used under
the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0
licence.
Any further distribution of
this work must maintain
attribution to the
author(s) and the title of
the work, journal citation
and DOI. | en_GB |
dc.title | Comment on 'Are physicists afraid of mathematics?' | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2016-11-21T11:09:21Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 1367-2630 | |
dc.description | This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record. | en_GB |
dc.identifier.journal | New Journal of Physics | en_GB |