A query...

[Daniel L. Everett]

Thanks to Alex for pointing this out.

There are some obvious dissimilarities between linguistics and fields  
that use lots of glass and metal. First, linguistic grants tend to be  
smaller, especially in the US (compared to the UK and EU). Second,  
linguists don't usually have labs with lots of postdocs. Third, as  
Mark Line says, data is often not as important to many linguists.  
(Take it third-hand or fourth-hand and just use it as an illustration  
at the appropriate times of your main theoretical point).

On the other hand, there are similarities. Some researchers do get  
large grants in linguistics, with large teams (e.g. Peter Ladefoged's  
grants in many of his years at UCLA). And many of the more important  
research projects, grammars & documentation projects, produce data  
that will be cited for years, perhaps centuries to come. In the case  
of the Jesuits in the 16th and 17th centuries all our evidence  
suggests that the integrity of their data-collection and presentation  
is first-rate, an example that has produced useful data for research  
on American Indian languages at least for centuries. On the other  
hand, I think that there is a strong possibility that in some more  
modern grammars a 'principle of charity' might have guided what data  
to present, where 'charity' refers to how the author would like the  
data to look for other points they want to make. Perhaps not  
falsification, but omission of problematic results. And failure to  
follow-up with experiments.

Solutions to this kind of thing include peer-review (I believe that  
it fails a lot, but it is still vital), making data available, and  
replication of results. In today's fieldwork, for example, I would  
like to see every fieldworker (with appropriate permissions from  
native speakers, governments, etc.) make their data available on- 
line, field notes, sound files, etc. To do this, future grants would  
need to have funds for digitization of data and storage of data,  
following guidelines that are now becoming standard in the field.

Funding agencies in Europe are beginning to require this kind of  
documentation. I think that the NSF should too, certainly in field  
research projects.

Dan

On Oct 23, 2006, at 9:05 PM, Alexander Gross2 wrote:

> It may well be that I am a bit overwraught about this, but I am  
> curious to learn if anyone here besides myself detected any  
> similarity, however remote, between an article in yesterday's New  
> York Times Sunday Magazine and the field of Linguistics.
>
> In case you missed it, you'll find the article at:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/magazine/22sciencefraud.html? 
> pagewanted=all
>
> with best wishes and apologies in advance,
>
> alex

**********************
Daniel L. Everett, Professor of Linguistics & Anthropology and Chair,
Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Campus Box 4300
Illinois State University
Normal, Illinois 61790-4300
OFFICE: 309-438-3604
FAX: 309-438-8038
Dept: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/default.asp
Recursion: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/rechul/
Personal: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/dlevere/

and

Honorary Professor of Linguistics
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK