Correlations Between Research Field and Vehicle Selection
At The Mill (YSA's research laboratories) we take pride in our science. We feel it is important that we make our work relevant to the international scientific community, so we try to do work that will have a high impact factor. Here, we tackle a pressing socioeconomic problem:
Correlations Between Research Field and Vehicle Selection
Introduction
Choosing a new family car is a decision that most people take quite seriously, and is often a long and difficult process. The way in which a researcher's publications are viewed is also very important to their employment prospects and prosperity. Continuing the fine tradition of hard-hitting, relevant and socially responsible scientific studies, researchers at The Mill have looked at the correlation between these two phenomena.
Vehicle Selection
Traditionally, Australia has been polarised between Ford and Holden cars. More recently, the luxury car market has grown to the point where it has significantly reduced the market share of both Ford and Holden.1 While the criteria for car selection used to include just functionality and practicality, there is now an overriding motivation for prestige. In the 19th century, economist Thorstein Veblen2 described this phenomenon as "conspicuous consumption".
As part of this study, we surveyed the parking lots of the Arts and Science Faculties at Deprived University3 and at the Banking and Legal headquarters of Rich Corporation.4 We collected data about the types of cars present in these car parks, particularly looking at the number of BMW cars present. Our results are shown in Figure 1.
 Figure 1: The percentage of people owning a BMW, by discipline. (click picture to enlarge) |
Research Field
Measuring the importance of a piece of research is quite difficult. A commonly used measure is the "citation impact", which is the number of times an article is referred to in other articles (e.g. the citation count of previous articles from The Mill may be increased like this5). In a study by the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR), the citation impact of Australian research relative to that of the rest of the world's articles was measured.6 The results of this study are shown in Figure 2. Simply, a positive relative citation impact means the rest of the world cares about what we do; a negative value means they don't care. A value of 0 indicates that Australians working in that field are respected as equals amongst their international peers.
 Figure 2: The citation impact of Australian research papers: percent above/below the world average citations per paper, by discipline. Source: Australian Science and Technology at a Glance, 2000. DISR. (click to enlarge) |
Correlations
There is an interesting relationship between the relative importance of the research (as measured by the citation impact) and the ownership of BMW cars that is worthy of further discussion. The correlation is quite strong and, as shown in Figure 3, may be fitted with extremely high certainty (P<0.0001) by a cubic polynomial. At this stage we are unsure as to the physical interpretation of this model and welcome any suggestions. We do, however, believe that it is reasonable to make predictions based upon this model.
 Figure 3: The correlation between relative research importance and BMW ownership. (click to enlarge) |
Prediction and Extrapolation
In our work, we have shown that the more useless the research performed, the greater the likelihood of choosing a car based on factors other than usefulness. Indeed, it is possible to extrapolate this data to reveal that at a relative citation impact of -70.7%, all workers in a field would own BMW cars. We postulate that this implies that there are fields of research more useless than Economics and Law, although the preference of some for luxury cars other than BMWs may discount the existence of such disciplines.
Additionally, it would appear that there is a maximum to the relative citation impact of +47% as beyond that point, a negative percentage of the population would be required. It is possible that people who have a car loan to purchase their BMW could account for a negative population although the validity of this argument is unclear.
More on Economic Theory
At the risk of being lumped in with the "Economics, Business" researchers about whom no-one seems to care, here are just a couple more thoughts from our friend Thorstein Veblen. He saw a difference between the business firm (objective: making profits) and the industrial process (objective: making goods). Veblen went on to draw up a new class structure:7
- The business class: not necessarily referring to airline travel, the business class are the agents of institutionalised waste, only concerned with making profit through the "irrational ways of business and finance". In 1904, Veblen claimed the businessmen changed fashions and designs each year to stimulate demand (of course, such practices do not happen today).
- The engineers' class: concerned with the "machine process", achieving technical excellence, progress and efficiency through innovation. Veblen held the engineers and scientists in the highest regard because they embodied the "instinct of man's workmanship".
- The archaic classes: "Soldiers, politicians, clergy and men of fashion" who sought only glory not profits or efficiency.
Conclusions
One thing that is evident in Australian society is change; and the slow death of the Ford vs Holden rivalry is part of this process. But now the researchers at The Mill can explain why: it is due to the increasing numbers of lawyers and accountants...
But there is one thing that we do not understand: where are our BMWs? On the basis of the publications to date (mainly pharmacology, genetics, chemistry, physics and a little maths), each of our Millers should each own about 15% of a luxury by now...
Competition
What field of research is more useless than Economics and Law?
During brief sabbaticals at The Mill, Dr Peter Godfrey provided the initial inspiration for us to undertake this study and Ruth Johnson helped our Millers finish this article; their assistance is gratefully acknowledged.
- At least that what it feels like when we drive to work these days
- Veblen, T.; The Theory of the Leisure Class, 1899
- not its real name
- not its real name either
- Mill, T.; The role of testosterone in the right foot extension, YSA News, 2000 (www.ysa.org.au/themill).
- For more information on these statistics see www.arc.gov.au/strat_plan/performance.htm
- Veblen, T.; The Theory of Business Enterprise, 1904
The Researchers at The Mill are interested in hearing about your unpublished research or new and interesting theories. If you have something in which you think our team would be interested, send it to us by email or snail mail to your YSA Chapter. Prizes will be awarded to good contributions as judged by the senior researchers.
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Last Modified: Monday, 08-Sep-2003 10:24:09 EST
