ERGOGRAPHY-RATIONAL METHOD FOR HANDLING AND EXTRACTING INFORMATION CONTAINED IN BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF PROLIFIC AUTHORS.

Abstract

Ergography is a novel technique invented in 2003 by the first author in his attempts to understand, analyze, and quantify at one glance the work of creative scientists without reading through lengthy, usually boring laudations of invited speakers. Traditional enumeration of accomplishments is helpful but less than satisfactory. Simple descriptive texts often do not satisfactorily answer the question of how, when and why certain observations and theories were established and how they influenced the development and advance of scientific fields at large. Five influential entomologists, R.L. Metcalf, H. Schmutterer, P. Karlson, T. Eisner and E.O. Wilson, as well as two biochemists, A. Butenandt and F. Lynen, a few of them still alive, were selected as targets to gain some experience with the new technique superficially resembling chromatograms or spectra. Pretty soon, it became clear that the "when" is easy to answer and follows from simple time diagrams. More difficult is the analysis of the "how" and "why" and "under whose influence" certain subject areas were pursued. Even more difficult to analyze is the impact, if any, certain papers had on subsequent authors and to what extent the "memes" influence contemporary or future authors within and outside established research schools of thought. Ergographic analysis is an ongoing project that learns its rules by trying and doing. It links the forefront of research to the task of the science historian who is looking back over considerable distances. Ergographists try to speed up this process by the tools of analyzing working patterns and hopefully finding similarities and signs of influences in other schools of thought. In the virtual absence of suitable critical electronic software with semantic resolution power, ergography is still a matter of personal enterprise, curiosity, intuition, and willingness to follow with a prepared mind the paths investigated before by ingenious talent and make them more transparent.