Compare and contrast

John Stockwell (among others) has suggested that there needs to be a baseline with which to compare Behe’s productivity as a scientist. Stockwell suggested Sean B. Carroll and, as always, I’m happy to oblige. (FYI, I’ve omitted Carroll’s review articles.)

i-194b5f762f62b241d26ea9924b754ddf-carroll_preview.jpg

Couple of things are of note here. Firstly, and most obviously, Carroll’s publication record makes (Full professor) Behe look like a piker, especially when you consider that Carroll’s papers appear in journals such as Nature, Science, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Secondly, we see the predicted shift from first-author papers to other-author papers as Carroll establishes himself (and his lab) as a productive center of research. Thirdly, while I have no access to Carroll’s tenure timeline, he clearly has remained highly productive throughout his 24+ year publication record (four years shorter than Behe’s).

One can argue that Carroll is exceptional and thus we are not comparing apples and oranges. That may be so, but what is interesting here is that prior to 1990, both Behe and Carroll had similar publication profiles and both were engaged in basic molecular biology. After 1991, Carroll was able to establish himself as a leader in the emerging field of evolutionary developmental biology, while Behe languished in the swamp that is intelligent design.

Oh, and Carroll also wrote four books between 2000 and 2006. That didn’t seem to alter his productivity one iota.

More like this

Over at this thread, a reader asked for Behe’s publication record in a similar format to Gonzalez’s. Glad to oblige. (As always, click for a big ’un). Note how his productivity drops off hugely once he gets publicly involved with ID in 1991. Much like Gonzalez, Behe’s most productive period occurs…
Jason Rosenhouse has already noted that Tom Woodward opined that "in the next six to twelve months, Darwinism will go into a steep nose dive as the result of Behe’s new book." How is this "tremendously important" book going to change the landscape of ID? Early indications appear to say ... not at…
Twelve months ago I offered a roundup of the "advances" made by the intelligent design movement in 2006, a month-by-month roundup which differed significantly from the assessment of John West. I had started to do the same for this year, but quickly realized that the ID movement achieved absolutely…
Intelligent Design is a career-killer. There's just no two ways about it. And not because of how peers treat the ID supporter; they throw their own productivity under the bus, to use Casey Luskin's overworked cliche. We saw the same thing with Behe and Dembski. Behe has published ONE peer-…

There is a large coupling coefficient between one's cumulative growth in Science Citation Index, or raw publication count; and one's ideological commitement.

This can have a positive sign or a negative sign.

So the ID people doom themselves. As Larry Niven writes: "Think of it as evolution in action." They stop from corrupting grad students and post-docs with self-destructive stupidity and dishonesty.

I agree that ID is a stinking swamp of stupidity, and that Behe is an unproductive charlatan; however, I think that post hoc ergo propter hoc arguments, even in a graphical format, qualify as magical thinking. I can just as easily imagine a scenario in which Behe suffered a series of small cerebral hemorrhages in the late 1980s/early 1990s, which led to the decline in his research publications, as well as to his acceptance and promotion of IDiocy.

Barn Owl,

Do you think that Guillermo Gonzalez suffered a similar series of unfortunate events?

I suspect that both Behe and Gonzalez could have chosen to continue with publishable work, but instead appear to have chosen a different path.

Since he essentially functioned as the anti-Behe at the Dover trial, it would be interesting to see Ken Miller's publication record. Miller certainly spends a non-trivial part of his time and effort on outreach.

Always bearing in mind that it is much easier to suggest than to do and offering thanks for the Gonzalez, Behe and Carroll graphs.

By Mike from Ottawa (not verified) on 10 Dec 2007 #permalink