[Taxacom] Fwd: Zootaxa taken off of JCR

[Carlos Alberto Martínez Muñoz]

 Roland Bergman-Sun (Daniel),
I am from "the South" and I am by far not in a safe and secure position.
About dismantling the JIF, you wrote: "Otherwise, you are very much
favoring western systems of academia over non-western ones". For your
information, the JIF is a western system of academia, which China happily
imported. It is China's fault not assessing the system and using it in a
disproportionate way to encourage its scientists to exert increased world
impact by playing by its rules.
Moreover, Clarivate was sold (Web of Science included) by Thomson Reuters
to Onex Corporation and to Baring Private Equity Asia. The latter is based
in Hong Kong, and it is very clear to me whose game is this now and to
which interests the JIF and Clarivate currently serve.
About the current self-destructive system that China has in place, you
wrote: "... what so many people here do: cheat. The standard method seems
to be to ask your colleagues to put your name on their almost-finished
publications, even if these publications have nothing to do with your grant
project. This thus inflates a person's number of publications, for no good
reason."
It is actually much worse than just inflating authorship. Chinese authors
are also trying to get more publications out in less time. They are writing
half-baked publications and sending it to the journals. That translates
into an unfair workload being put on reviewers like me. This year I
rejected one Chinese paper, with a two-page review. Other Chinese paper
passed, with a 14-page review. Two papers in ZooKeys that were never sent
to me were published with basic but fatal flaws. And so on.
However, it is worse than that. Chinese authors in Medicine are buying
papers from "paper mills" and publishing fake data on life-saving topics
such as cancer research. That is plainly a crime.

Now, I won't romaticize this "need for the JIF" and "empathy" as others
have done here. There may be not many, but certainly there are a few
scientists in this list that have endured overwhelming powers, like the
power of a totalitarian government and its secret police. Scientists that
know what is like to stand for a fair cause and to lose what they care
about most. Those scientists know how to differentiate a victim from a
coward and from an accomplice. When one is "trapped" (to use Michael Ivie's
word) in a conflict situation, one always has choices at hand. One can be a
coward and run away, effectively getting out of the conflict. That I would
call a victim. One can be brave and fight back, whether one could win or
not. Courageous, self-sacrificing people, setting examples for all of us.
And one can stay in the conflict situation, playing a twisted game,
profiting from it and harming colleagues close and far. People that are not
willing to make any moral choice that implies personal sacrifice. That is
not a victim, that is an accomplice, and I feel no empathy for those.

You also wrote: "As stupid as the IF system may be, the sensible approach
would be to *first* change the way funding grants, tenure track systems and
so on be, and *then* dismantle the IF system, if that is the goal." The JIF
is global and requires global commitment to be changed, or commitment of a
few players that are powerful enough. Funding grants and tenure track
systems are mostly national and require internal changes. If there is a
perceived personal economic benefit from the national system in place, it
is highly unlikely that any internal change will happen. In the overall
scenario, you should expect the JIF system crashing globally first and then
China catching up with new policies. During the transition period, you
should expect Chinese scientists to suffer the consequences of previous bad
national decisions and of their own personal choices of not fighting the
system when they could. Of course, you may still be on time "...to *first*
change the way funding grants, tenure track systems...", as you suggested
yourself.

Good luck,
Carlos

Carlos A. Martínez Muñoz
Zoological Museum, Biodiversity Unit
FI-20014 University of Turku
Finland
Myriatrix <http://myriatrix.myspecies.info/>
ResearchGate profile
<https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlos_Martinez-Munoz>
Myriapod Morphology and Evolution
<https://www.facebook.com/groups/205802113162102/>