QUALITY AND A QUANTITY OF THE SCIENCE

Abstract

More and more the «quality» of science is estimated by its «quantity». We are aimed to all kind of measurements such as effectiveness of certain scientist, efficiency of work of laboratories, institutes, universities and colleges, periodicals, regional divisions of the Russian Academy of Sciences. But who measures these parameters? Different funds, committees, magazine editorial offices, «leading» and ordinary scientists is the answer. Lev Tolstoy wrote: scientists do a lot of things, «…with the same eagerness and seriousness they investigate the question about the Sun weight,… (long list of problems). And these activities don’t have the end, because only work has the beginning and the end, and idleness has neither end nor beginning» [Tolstoy, 1909]. These words are strong and offensive for scientists but not quite right: idlers are among «science measures», «scientometrics» rather than among simple scientists.