His research focuses on molecular and genome evolution, and studies the rate, pattern and effects of genetic mutations through the statistical analysis of DNA sequences and mathematical modeling from an evolutionary perspective. [1] [5] According to Eyre-Walker: "One of the central mysteries of evolution is how much of it is due to adaptive evolution at the molecular level. I have devoted much of my career in one way or another to answering this question and those related to it. It seems that adaptive evolution has a major role to play in many species, but we are far from understanding the full picture." [2]
Research on the scientific process
In 2013, with Nina Stoletzki, Eyre-Walker published research arguing that scientists are poor at assessing one another's work: "... scientists have little ability to judge either the intrinsic merit of a paper or its likely impact....the number of citations a paper receives is an extremely error-prone measure of scientific merit.... [and] impact factor is likely to be a poor measure of merit, since it depends on subjective assessment". [6] [7] He concluded: "Scientists are probably the best judges of science, but they are pretty bad at it". [8]
Two years later, Eyre-Walker and colleagues Isabelle Cook and Sam Grange researched the optimal size and structure of scientific laboratories. By analyzing data from almost 400 different laboratories, they reported that the bigger the lab, the more productive it is (measured in number of publications, impact factor of the journals in which group members publish papers, and number of citations). [9] [10]
