THE SCIENTIFIC TALENTS OF NATIONS

The recently discovered ''Matthew effect for countries'' (MEG) is a me asurable phenomenon in the world-wide system of scientific communicati on. This system is of interest for scientometrics, sociology of scienc e, as well as for research policy. Its functioning is based largely on citing mechanisms, involving the citation activity and choices of ind ividual scientists, scientific institutions and whole scientific natio ns. The Science Citation Index is an appropriate means for studying an d assessing the scientific power of nations. The MEC states that a min ority of countries, expecting a high number of citations per scientifi c paper, is gaining even more citations than expected, while the major ity of countries, expecting only a low number of citations per scienti fic paper, is gaining even fewer citations than expected. ''Relative n ational loss/gain of citations'' is a measure that describes the exten t a country is affected by the MEG. Countries belonging to the ''loser s'' - the majority that experiences a loss of citations - can be assig ned to a ''Left World'', the ''winners'' - those few countries which g ain extra citations - to a ''Right World'' in which the top scientific nations are found. The results that establish the existence of a MEC are based on the investigation of 44 countries which produce altogethe r about 2,5 million scientific papers and 9,5 million citations over f ive years. In this study the MEC is confronted with the entire gospel parable of the entrusted talents (ST. MATTHEW 25, 14-30). A detailed c orrespondence of essential aspects of the bibliometric MEC on the one hand and the Biblical gospel parable, on the other is observed.