MRE Symonds (2004) Nature and Science know best. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19: 564
What’s it about?
I looked at whether having a Nature or Science paper early in one’s career is a good predictor of subsequent career productivity and success (it is).
What’s the story about it?
The only paper of mine conceived from a pub conversation (specifically in the student bar at James Cook University), where we sat around moaning about how unfair it was that people with Nature and Science papers always got jobs and grants, and surely such people are actually not likely to be any better than the rest of us. I decided to test our assumptions. We were wrong (although the results are actually somewhat possibly circular: individuals who get Nature and Science papers are more likely to attract funding and therefore be able to produce more papers, after all).
The Symonds Lab 