Measurement of scientific consensus by bibiometrics?

[Chaomei Chen]

Hi Steve,

Our paper linked below could be relevant. It is to be presented to the IEEE
Symp. on Visual Analytics Science and Technology next week. It includes
some preliminary results on how to differentiate a large number of
conflicting opinions,
in this case is about the controversal bestseller The Da Vinci Code based
on 3,000+ Amazon customer reviews.
The work is ongoing and the idea is to develop the method further in order
to apply it to scientific literature.
The goal is to be able to pinpoint exactly how different views differ based
on a series of statistical selection
and classification processes.

Chen, C., SanJuan, F. I., SanJuan, E., & Weaver, C. (2006) Visual analysis
of conflicting opinions. IEEE Symposium on Visual Analytics Science and
Technology (VAST 2006), Baltimore, MA. Oct 31-Nov 2, 2006.
http://cluster.cis.drexel.edu/~cchen/projects/nevac/vast2006-chen.pdf

Best wishes,
Chaomei

-----ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics <SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU>
wrote: -----

>To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
>From: "Morris, Steven (BA)" <Steven.Morris at BAKERHUGHES.COM>
>Sent by: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
><SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU>
>Date: 10/25/2006 09:06AM
>Subject: [SIGMETRICS] Measurement of scientific consensus by
>bibiometrics?
>
>Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>Hello folks,
>
>I am wondering if anyone out there knows of any papers that discuss
>bibliometric methods to measure ‘consensus’ of scientists on some
>knowledge claim in a scientific specialty.
>
>Given the importance of the perception of scientific consensus on
>political decisions, particularly on contentious “two opposing camps”
>type issues such as global warming or stem-cell research, I am
>wondering if there are any bibliometric studies that propose methods
>to objectively measure such consensus.
>
>I’ve seen Chaomei Chen’s paper on ‘opposing paradigms’, which dealt
>with a controversy on mass dinosaur extinctions. Chen’s method uses
>co-citation analysis and pathfinder maps to show growth and decline
>of citation rates to key papers representing each ‘camp’ in the
>controversy.
>
>I’ve also seen Oreskes’ study in Science ( link ) which uses a
>collection of abstracts downloaded from Web of Science to argue that
>there is a consensus in the scientific community on the phenomena of
>human-caused global warning. This study received a lot of attention
>in the press, and generated some backlash as well, but I’m not aware
>of any critique of the paper by members of the bibliometrics
>community.
>
>Can consensus be measured by bibliometrics? If so, how to validate
>the results of such studies?
>
>If anyone can point me to articles that deal with the topic, I’d
>appreciate it.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Steven Morris
>Houston , Texas , USA
>
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