Abstract
The attempt to assess the quality of research using quantitative methods based on citation statistics is a growing trend. The paper presents the methods, identifies the major factors that can account for this development of quantitative tools. The evaluation of institutions, journals and individual researchers is considered. Major flaws appear, not only because of some technical imperfection in the data banks. Citation practices are not the neutral, objective len one could expect to observe this highly complex social activity of science production. A test conducted in sociology reveals a discrepancy in the data between American and French social scientists. Among the latter, the number of citations is so tiny that any attempt to use quantitative data to assess French sociology production appears highly questionable.Finally, it is shown that citations statistics as a way to assess research products is also the target of criticism on behalf of other disciplines, including branches of hard sciences, and that the same protest against these methods develops all over the planet. Citation statistics cannot serve as a proxy for peer review.
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