Lad mikroskopet stå, når du er fuld

Som naturvidenskabelig studerende bør jeg nok lade være med at tænke på denne undersøgelse, næste gang LU indtager Toga Vin- og Ølstue. Selv en lille smule øl gør folk til dårligere forskere:

According to the study, published in February in Oikos, a highly respected scientific journal, the more beer a scientist drinks, the less likely the scientist is to publish a paper or to have a paper cited by another researcher, a measure of a paper’s quality and importance.

The results were not, however, a matter of a few scientists having had too many brews to be able to stumble back to the lab. Publication did not simply drop off among the heaviest drinkers. Instead, scientific performance steadily declined with increasing beer consumption across the board, from scientists who primly sip at two or three beers over a year to the sort who average knocking back more than two a day.

Det samme gør sig dog ikke gældende i finansernes verden. Edward Stringham, økonom og anarko-kapitalist, har i hvert fald fundet ud af, at højere alkoholforbrug fører til en højere indkomst.

To modstridende teorier? Eller et tegn på, at dårlige forskere er de mest vellønnede?