A Inata Picaretagem do Brasileiro

O Ciência Brasil divulgou a matéria da Nature sobre o mais novo escândalo da “ciência” no Brasil, um cartel de auto-citações cruzadas. Hoje ele reproduz um excelente comentário postado na Revista argumentando que esse escândalo apenas reflete a falta de caráter, decência e mostra a picaretagem imanente do brasileiro médio: The shambolic state of Brazil's society is well illustrated in this case. We have here university faculty members, who are likely to be educated and relatively well-off, resorting to fraudulent practices for what seems very low-stakes. Yes, low stakes: first because the Brazilian university system does not properly reward academics for publications in higher-impact outlets. It may arguably help getting promoted to higher positions (e.g. going from associate to full professor), but this is not sufficient nor necessary and will not get you much higher in the salary scale. Second because the readership and use of Brazilian journals as reference sources for scholars are of little significance (impact factors of "Clinics", for instance, was 1.591 back in 2010, with most Brazilian journals showing impact factors close to zero). Given the little incentives to tampering with the citations, this episode speaks volumes about how endemic corruption is in the day-to-day business of people in this country. It adds insult to injury to have the culprits blaming CAPES graduate programmes evaluation system for the cheating. To offer such excuses is just pathetic. After all, saying that a given good is too pricey for you to afford is no excuse for stealing it. Shame on the corrupt editors and authors involved in this sordid deal. (By Sergio Almeida)