Scientists will be evaluated according to the "Kardashian index"
Scientists will be evaluated according to the "Kardashian index"

Video: Scientists will be evaluated according to the "Kardashian index"

Video: Scientists will be evaluated according to the
Video: Vlog 238 - The Kardashian Index 2024, November
Anonim

Some socialites can boast not only luxurious outfits and outrageous antics at stellar parties. Certain ladies are so active that their name is becoming a household name not only in pop culture, but also in science. Thus, the British geneticist Neil Hall named the index he derived to assess the popularity of scientists and their real contribution to science in honor of the American star Kim Kardashian.

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Today, the American reality TV star is one of the most popular girls on the planet with a huge number of subscribers on social networks. This is despite the fact that Kim does not actually have any major achievements in music, cinema, art or politics.

Hall drew parallels to Kim in the world of science from his own research indicating that many scientists may have high citation rates for their articles due to their active media engagement, but not at all because of the content of their scientific works.

The British expert also noted the low popularity of women scientists. According to the assumptions of genetics, gender inequality still exists in a number of sciences.

To describe this connection, a scientist from the University of Liverpool introduced a special K-index - the Kardashian index. The scientist proposed to calculate the K-index as the ratio of the number of citations in the media (using the example of followers on Twitter) to the number of citations in articles. According to the geneticist, if for some scientist this ratio (his Kardashian index) exceeds five, then the scientist can be attributed to the representative of "science from the Kardashians." At the same time, Hall chose not to name the specific names of his colleagues, who can be classified as representatives of such a science.

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