Yes!
According to a recent publication by Tomas Grim from Palack University's Department of Zoololgy in the Czech Republic.
This study followed around Czech ornthogists between 2002 and 2006, and found those that the more beer a scientist drinks, the less likely the scientist is to publish a paper or to have a paper cited by another researcher.
Obviously there is bound to be some strong reactions to this finding, and I personally find the study to be too narrowly focused on one nationality (which happens to have the highest rate of beer consumption on earth) and on one sector of science. I believe we all know at least one scientist who's prolific publication record is about as well known as their ability to drink - which is starkly contrary to this paper's finding.
I would encourage anyone with an opinion on this topic to leave a post and follow the link below to the abstract from the ecological journal
Oikos Tomá Grim (2008)
A possible role of social activity to explain differences in publication output among ecologists. doi:10.1111/j.2008.0030-1299.16551.x
Abstract:
Publication output is the standard by which scientific productivity is evaluated. Despite a plethora of papers on the issue of publication and citation biases, no study has so far considered a possible effect of social activities on publication output. One of the most frequent social activities in the world is drinking alcohol. In Europe, most alcohol is consumed as beer and, based on well known negative effects of alcohol consumption on cognitive performance, I predicted negative correlations between beer consumption and several measures of scientific performance. Using a survey from the Czech Republic, that has the highest per capita beer consumption rate in the world, I show that increasing per capita beer consumption is associated with lower numbers of papers, total citations, and citations per paper (a surrogate measure of paper quality). In addition I found the same predicted trends in comparison of two separate geographic areas within the Czech Republic that are also known to differ in beer consumption rates. These correlations are consistent with the possibility that leisure time social activities might influence the quality and quantity of scientific work and may be potential sources of publication and citation biases.
Additional Readings -
New York Times
For Scientists, a Beer Test Shows Results as a Litmus Test
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