playing the game
Me: So apparently no one has ever developed a model quite like mine before.
M: That's great! You'll be the first to publish it, and everyone will cite you!
Me: That's *scary*. What if I'm wrong?
M: That's even better! Everyone will cite you to say that you're wrong, then you get to publish *another* paper fixing the mistakes in your first paper, and then everyone will cite *that*!
Me: Oh. I didn't think of it that way.
Me: You know, if I were more cunning, I could use this to my advantage...publish a theory that I know doesn't work, wait until everyone gets up in arms over it, then publish an improvement to the theory that still doesn't quite work, and so on. And then I'd get lots of publications and be famous.
M: Isn't that what Chomsky's been doing all his life?
M: That's great! You'll be the first to publish it, and everyone will cite you!
Me: That's *scary*. What if I'm wrong?
M: That's even better! Everyone will cite you to say that you're wrong, then you get to publish *another* paper fixing the mistakes in your first paper, and then everyone will cite *that*!
Me: Oh. I didn't think of it that way.
Me: You know, if I were more cunning, I could use this to my advantage...publish a theory that I know doesn't work, wait until everyone gets up in arms over it, then publish an improvement to the theory that still doesn't quite work, and so on. And then I'd get lots of publications and be famous.
M: Isn't that what Chomsky's been doing all his life?