John Wilbanks writes in SEEDMAGAZINE this week about the Matthew Effect: “When it comes to scientific publishing and fame, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” The effect is named from this explanation by Jesus of a parable: “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” —Matthew 25:29
Wilbanks describes in the article, that the Matthew effect is observable in scientific publication: “famous scientists reap more credit than unknowns.” As it does in the parable, the effect on scientists ends up causing “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Something very interesting is going on here. The Matthew effect is a characteristic of small world networks. The effect has several names: Pareto principle, power law, long tail, and preferential attachment. Google essentially operates on this principle because the links most favored and attached go to the top of the search engine results.
What seems to be happening for scientific publication is NOT that this principle is operating, but quite the opposite. Peer review and other non-network mechanisms are actually gumming up the networks: the most creative and productive scientists are not getting the recognition.
This false Matthew-like effect is critical to recognize for online findability. That findability MUST make the best resources the richest or the vetting visions for the open knowledge commons are badly downgraded.
And lo! After describing the false elevations occurring from scientific citation, Wilbanks writes:
Multidimensionality is one of the only counters to the Matthew Effect we have available. In forums where this kind of meritocracy prevails over seniority, like Linux or Wikipedia, the Matthew Effect is much less pronounced. And we have the capacity to measure each of these individual factors of a scientist’s work, using the basic discourse of the Web: the blog, the wiki, the comment, the trackback. We can find out who is talented in a lab, not just who was smart enough to hire that talent. As we develop the ability to measure multiple dimensions of scientific knowledge creation, dissemination, and re-use, we open up a new way to recognize excellence. What we can measure, we can value.
Surely, this fairness emerging from measurability in the open internet is the actual Matthew effect: the power law. The deserving scientists rise to the head of the curve and others trail out into the curve’s long tail. What scientists have been griping about as the Matthew effect is constricted by peer review and ambitions. In the open internet, that sort of thing is much harder to do and the real Matthew effect determines who gets rich — selecting there, as Google does, the better quality stuff.
Hat tip to John Wilbanks: Great article in SEED, but I could not resist tweaking the irony of the Matthew effect language.
