If the NFL Can Do It, So Can Scientists

Authors

H. Charles Romesburg, Utah State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publisher

The Scientist

Publication Date

10-20-2003

Volume

17

Abstract

In America's National Football League, a player gets full credit only for a so-called sack when he alone brings down the quarterback. In the world of US patents, a patent holder rakes in all the royalties if he or she is the sole name on the invention. If there's more than one name, the money is equally shared. It's called Laplace's Principle of Insufficient Reason: Without grounds for specifying unequal portions, the rational approach is to apportion equally. And it is, I'm convinced, the method by which scientists should calculate their citation numbers.

Comments

Originally published by The Scientist. HTML fulltext available through remote link.

Recommended Citation

H.C. Romesburg. October 20, 2003. If the NFL Can Do It, So Can Scientists. The Scientist,