Hvorfor bibliometri ikke lønner seg illustrert med Osama Bin Laden

Dette eksemplet i en bloggpost fra LSE av Jerry Z. Muller med bestrebelsene med å fange Osama Bin Laden er illustrerende for hvorfor kvantitative mål ikke lønner seg for forskningen:

Contrary to commonsense belief, attempts to measure productivity through performance metrics discourage initiative, innovation, and risk-taking. The intelligence analysts who ultimately located Osama bin Laden worked on the problem for years. If measured at any point, the productivity of those analysts would have been zero. Month after month, their failure rate was 100 per cent, until they achieved success. From the perspective of the superiors, allowing the analysts to work on the project for years involved a high degree of risk: the investment in time might not pan out. Yet really great achievements often depend on such risks.