Scientometries, Vol. 12. Nos 5-6 (1987) 343-344

T O B E L I E V E O R N O T T O B E L I E V E

A comment on "Testing the Ortega Hypothesis: Facts and Artifacts" by M. H, MACROBERTS and B. R. MACROBERTS, Scientometrics, 12 (1987) 293.

F. NARIN

Computer Horizons Inc., 10 White Horse Pike, Haddon Heights. New Jersey 08035 (USA)

(Received February 23, 1987)

The position of MaeRoberts and MacRoberts (M&M) boils down to essentially

whether a) one should believe the citation data, b) one should believe the conventional interpretation of it, and the implications

with respect to refuting the Ortega hypothesis, and

c) one should believe that any significant amount of policy has ever been imple-

mented on the basis of this anyway. I am sure M&M and most others certainly believe the data-citations from highly

cited papers people, institutions, tend to go to other highly cited papers, people, in- stitutions, and that relatively large number of the highly cited papers are written by

a relatively small number of people.

The question then is whether one believes that this data proves, or at least strongly

implies, that the Ortega hypothesis is false. The essence of M&M's argument seems to

be that, because of uncertainty as to what a citation really means, the pattern of the elite citing the elite should not be interpreted to mean that the elite depend on the

work of the elite without depending on the work of the underlings, but rather that

the elite are using their citations to other elite more to bolster their position than to

show the true underpinings of their research.

M&M's argument for interpreting the data in this way and suggestion for alterna- tives appears tenuous, at best, for a number of reasons.

First, they really do not show that a significant fraction of the citations are not

true measures of linkage. For example, the various tracing studies all show citation

linkages representing sequential steps in important scientific advances. Second, citation is so heavily concentrated that, even if two-thirds of the citations

were perfunctory or irrelevant or biased, there would still be a very strong relation-

Els: vier, Amsterdam- Oxford-New York Akaddmiai Kiad6, Budapest

F. NARIN: COMMENT ON THE PAPER OF M&M

ship between the earlier elites and the later elites, and this would still imply linkage

between the citing and cited authors and papers. Their suggestion of a return to the string and ceiling wax era of labor intensive,

detailed historical and sociological analysis is totally impractical in a world in which

there are a million scientific papers published each year. More understanding of the

limitation of citation analysis and its significance is certainly warranted: returning to

the old ways is certainly out of the question.

A third and very important point is that it is highly unlikely that anyone, either formally or informally, has used the Ortega hypothesis or its refutation for any serious

policy purposes. The size of the scientific community in a given country seems to be far more heavily driven by the underlying economic conditions-the number of papers

roughly proportional to GNP or similar indicators-and responds to economic and

political considerations, not to arcane sociological arguments.

Finally, even if the Ortega hypothesis were totally refuted, it is highly unlikely there would be any way in the foreseeable future in which a choice could be made,

in advance, of those people entering science who would be productive and any way

of eliminating, in advance, the non-productive, without eliminating the potentially pro-

ductive workers as well.

344 Scientometrics 12 (1987)