I would make a counter-case that scientists don't get much credit from the scientific community for communicating with the public, which funds their research, engages potential students, etc.

An extreme case is Issac Asimov who dropped out of the rat race of academia and writing Sci Fi with L. Ron Hubbard for a penny a word and wrote decades of monthly essays about science for the public that were a big reason why I went for a PhD. He didn't contribute hugely in terms of research or traditional teaching, but his impact was immense.

Also, Carl Sagan's involvement in Cosmos and the books he wrote overshadows a completely solid career in space and planetary science.

Odd as it may seem, I think Kim is a highly intelligent woman who could have if she had been so inclined become a solid scientist.

Crazy? Not if you think of her as using applied psychology to acquire and retain attention in a world where attention is the scarce resource. She has a finely tuned sense of how to stay in the news and fascinate the world.

That takes intelligence and social savvy. I'm sure she could have directed it to more scientific endeavors if she wanted.

I think you may be mistaking the individual for the brand. I'd be willing to bet that the applied psychology and ability to retain attention across the world is more the work of her PR team than any individual intellectual skills she may (or may not) possess.

Also, at the risk of sounding sexist, I'd be willing to bet that if Kim Kardashian wasn't a sex symbol (we remember how she initially got that attention, correct?) I imagine she'd get significantly less attention.

That being said, I do agree she could have used her star power to improve science... yet I'd be curious how many followers she'd have now if she'd spent the last 5-10 years sending smart science tweets instead of sexy selfies.

Kim's certainly a highly effective businesswoman. (As is her husband.)

I've only seen their show in passing, but I believe her mother Kris is largely credited with masterminding the family's rise to stardom.

> That takes intelligence and social savvy.

Nah, it just takes money, a publicist, and the desire to be famous coupled with natural looks. She isn't using any applied psychology, she's simply being herself and people love to watch a train-wreck.

Same can be said about Trump, McGregor etc? Do we really want these kind of people to "stay in the news and fascinate the world"?

I'm pretty sure the news networks are ecstatic that Trump is in the news. Their incentive is not really aligned with delivering scientific information.

The original article is old, and also a bit cringey in trying to be hip and sardonic. And obviously it's an argument and opinion not meant to be taken scientifically. No scientist would voluntarily include a K-index (ratio of citations vs. twitter followers) on their twitter profile unless they felt they deserved larger recognition.

That said, there's this growing clique of scientists on twitter and as the clique grows in spread and weight, it's becoming harder for new scientists to jump in. What used to be a safe place to air laundry and commiserate about academia is now kind of like regulated hivemind where you can only air 'certain' topics that the twitter cabal approves.

I've heard this from more and more scientists approaching social media/openness/the internet, that twitter is not as flat as it's been portrayed to be. I think this stems from the main conflict of popularity vs. legitimacy, and in science buzz it's so easy to game the system once you have the minimum amount of recognition.

All of this points to the conclusion that twitter is not a natural home for scientists, but rather scientists have adapted their behavior to twitter and shrewd ones have capitalized. Some of it's good, some of it's not good, and in that regard I agree with the author.

Here's an example of the Kardashian index applied to the specific field of marketing academics: https://analyticdashboards.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/from-kar...

Credit: Koen Pauwels

Someone should try this with Github commits/repo-stars and Twitter followers. There a good number of productive developers who don't have much of a social media following.