On Bad Samples

"The" furniture fair of the world took place, as usual, in Milan. As NY Times says, it “... is the event of the year — something akin to the Detroit, Geneva and Tokyo auto shows, or the New York, Paris and Milan fashion weeks, rolled into one.", and the article focuses on the creative pieces, including some astonishing lights. LA Times does a photo series that arches from the good to the not so good. This site has the most hideous designs from the same show. Here and elsewhere, the best rests with the worst.

I think about this because there is a similar phenomena in research papers. Potent papers coexist with the Inert. Problem is, students get confused by Inert papers and are not able to develop a metric for good work; researchers see Inert papers published, their authors have an academic career and lose some of their inspiration. Inert papers open the valve and let the gas out some, all around.