Nauka

A review is presented of the history of ‘impact factor’ since its introduction in 1955 by Eugene Garfield for assessing scientific periodicals to its present degeneration in the hands of science administrators who enforce its use to classify scientists. Arguments are presented against that procedure. Recently there has been an increase of resistance among scientists and the editors of periodicals who call for replacing bibliometric parameters by peer review assessment of publications.

There may be circumstances where academic degrees or the title of professor are obtained deceitfully, i.e. in breach of copyrights or moral principles in science. Dishonesty in scientific research constitutes gross misconduct because it is executed in order to appropriate ideas, findings, collocations and theses of others, without accurate citation of the source. It also entails infringement of intellectual property rights. Scientific misconduct in ethical and legal aspect is explicit. It disqualifies the offender as a scientist. The unlawful act of obtaining an academic degree (Ph.D.) or the title of professor in such a deceitful manner, irrespective of how much time has passed, shall not make the resumption condition fall under the statute of limitations. Thus, it enables the reopening of procedures to deprive the person who deceitfully obtained an academic degree or title of this degree or title.

The paper analyzes the changing public-private dynamics in higher education in Poland in 1990-2016 and beyond, focusing on the processes of internal and external de-privatization of the system. De-privatization of higher education – viewed also as its republicization – is caused by declining demographics and may lead to the demise of the largely demand-absorbing private higher education. Poland is shown as moving against the two powerful global trends related to privatization: private sector growth and increasing reliance on cost-sharing. Data related to funding and provision in 1990-2005 (expansion) and 2006 and beyond (contraction) are analyzed in detail, and policy implications of ongoing and expected changes are discussed.

The paper proposes a list of five „stylized facts”, regarded as the main trends with respect to the development of the global economy in the 20th c. The author’s main purpose is to answer the question whether, in the light of the contemporary growth theory and demographic forecasts, these trends are likely to continue unchanged also in the 21st c. Taking into account this theory and those forecasts, the paper offers forecasts of the average GDP per capita for both the countries of the Technology Frontier Area (TFA) and the catching-up countries. By these forecasts, the strong divergence trend of the last two centuries will be replaced by a strong convergence trend during the 21st c. Moreover, the global rate of growth of the per capita GDP will continue to be high in the first half of the current century, but strongly declining in the second half.

Since modern usage of the core terms is essential in the appropriate interpretation of ancient rhetoric texts, the paper starts from a discussion of semantic differences between the concepts of advice, counselling and deliberation in the Polish language. Ancient rhetoric takes as its starting point an overarching notion of ‘deliberative genre’ which includes not only laymen and expert advice, but also the political deliberation. It offers some theoretical categories, universal enough to address these apparently incompatible contexts of advice-giving and advice- taking. Rhetorical approach points out the relation between axiology and persuasive mechanisms. It identifies also some persuasive devices likely to enhance the efficiency of advice-giving, such as the use of examples and reasoning based on probability evaluation.

The article discusses two works devoted to the women's education and upbringing, written in two different eras. Both books – the treaty by a Spanish secular humanist Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540) De institutione feminae christianae (Bruges 1524) dedicated to the Queen of England, Catherine of Aragon, wife of Henry VIII, and her daughter Mary Tudor, and reference guide for women by a Spanish Jesuit Jorge Loring (1921–2013) Para salvarte. Compendio de las verdades fundamentales de la religión católica y normas para vivirlas (1st ed. 1952) – are advisory in nature. Both authors in a similar way define the role of women in a society. Formulating the recommendations for good Christian women, the authors resort to almost identical argumentation derived from the Bible and the writings of the Church Fathers. They use similar rhetorical devices which are tailored to the current circumstances. Both authors refer to the same authority and show the same examples. The analysis of both works aims to show the immutability of rhetorical practices in the field of advice literature devoted to women.

The article corresponds to the 400th death annniversary of two famous European writers – Cervantes and Shakespeare – celebrated all around the world. The author tells about their lifes and takes into consideration the possiblility of their meeting together in Vailladolid. Besides, the author emphasizes on the qualities that are in common for Shakespeare’s and Cervantes’ works – among others the universality (their readers were both educated as well as simple), the ability to create symbolic figures and the application of colloquial language.

Human brain is “the perfect guessing machine” (James V. Stone (2012) Vision and Brain, Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, p. 155), trying to interpret sensory data in the light of previous biases or beliefs. Bayesian inference is carried out by three complex networks of the human brain: salience network, central executive network, and default mode network. Their function is analysed both in neurotypical person and Attention Deficit Disorder. Modern human being having predictive brain and overloaded mind must develop social identity, whose evolution went probably through three stages: social selection based on punishment, sexual selection based on reputation, and group selection based on identity.

In 2015 an important part of the official evaluation of Polish scientific journals was left to experts’ judgement. In this paper we try to establish which observable factors (with available data) are closely related to the outcome of experts’ evaluation of Polish journals in economic sciences. Using the multiple regression statistical model we show that only 5 variables (out of 17) significantly explain almost 50% of the empirical variance of the experts’ evaluation. The determinants of particular interest, not entering the formal criteria and not related to the impact on global science, are: the number of citations mainly in Polish journals and the affiliation with the Polish Academy of Sciences.

NHST (null hypothesis significance testing) is the most popular statistical paradigm in psychology. Mistakes in interpretation of its assumptions and their consequences are topic for methodological and statistical discussion for over fifty years. Article presents two problems associated with NHST that are particularly prevalent in psychology: identifying non-significant results with research failure and conducting underpowered research. They can contribute to increase in exploiting questionable research practices in order to obtain desirable, significant outcomes. Three practices: p-hacking, HARKing and selective publishing are described, along with analysis of their impact on replication crisis in psychological science.

The subject of the considerations put forward in this article is an evaluation of the quality, in substantive and ethical terms, of the specialist translation into Polish of Henryk Hiż’s article ‘Peirce’s Influence on Logic in Poland’. The translation subjected to evaluation here was published in 2015 in the specialist philosophical journal Studia z Filozofii Polskiej [Studies of Polish Philosophy] (October 2015, pp. 21–33). In the presented evaluation, I point out substantive and ethical violations committed by interpreter, calling attention to (a) the flouting of the principle cuilibet in arte sua ; (b) manipulation of source material; (c) dishonesty in philological-textological development; (d) improper editorial preparation; (e) disregard of the subsequent literature on the subject; (f) deliberate and unjustified abridgement of the original text. The deficiencies enumerated in points (a)–(f) are the result of interpreter’s adoption of the ‘publish or perish’ strategy, the overriding goal of which is to publish an article in a high-impact journal with the aim of achieving the most favourable bibliometric result in the shortest possible time, at a cost to the integrity and ethical responsibility of the translator-researcher.

The article is devoted to the late Zygmunt Bauman (d. January 2017), a scholar who made an enormous impact on world humanities at the turn of the twentieth century. It briefly presents Bauman’s life and a number of the best known concepts from his works. The author first discusses Bauman’s attitude toward Marxist theory and explains his revision of it. He then introduces the main ideas of Bauman work Modernity and the Holocaust. The article ends with a review of Bauman’s reflections on globalisation and a discussion of his thesis concerning the crisis of the nation state.

The article presents personal memories of Professor Aleksander Koj’s alumni. Professor Aleksander Koj was a world-class biochemist of significant scientific achievements, a renowned authority in the field of acute-phase response regulation and acute-phase proteins. He was an excellent academic, a true Master, admired and followed by many Polish biochemists. Thrice he served as the Rector of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He navigated the University through a difficult time of political transformation in Poland, modernized the management system of the University and led to the commencement of the construction of the new University campus. He was the co-creator and the first Chairman of the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland. He will be remembered as a devoted community worker aiming at strengthening the bond between the Polish community abroad and our homeland, propagating knowledge, promoting the concept of European integration, democracy and tolerance, as well as the collaboration between scientists, artists and men and women of culture. He was wise, righteous, and noble. Many had the honor of calling him their friend, and a great many saw in him a moral authority.

The article presents the main discoveries of Prof. Andrzej K. Tarkowski, which proved to be fundamental for modern mammalian developmental biology and also for progress in animal breeding and assisted reproduction. Among his achievements the most important are: the demonstration of regulative abilities of blastomeres isolated from early mammalian embryos, generation of first chimaeric mice, studies on mammalian parthenogenesis and establishment of blastomere electrofusion technique for production of tetraploid embryos. Studies on nucleocytoplasmic interactions in germ cells and early embryos contributed substantially to the development of mammalian cloning. Prof. Tarkowski’s work and discoveries provided a tremendous input to the contemporary developmental biology of mammals.