I've written previously on this blog about why I tend not to cite others in what I write here.
Now that I've written a number of papers in the field of chemistry, I would like to add a subtle, but important, nuance to that argument that largely pertains to texts that others have written.
In the natural sciences, any paper typically has a structure where a problem is introduced, then a methodology is described for finding answers to that problem, then the results of that methodology are described before they are interpreted in how they may relate to the initially stated problem. References to other sources are usually found in the first part of these writings. When describing the problem and the methodology, it is very often useful to know and state how others have approached similar problems in the past and how their approach relates to the question you are trying to answer now.
However, in the interpretation of your results, it is rare that any other sources are referenced unless you obtained some highly unexpected outcome. The reasons for this are obvious, as only you have done your experiments in the way you have set them up, so only you have anything to say about how they relate to the problem at hand.
This is very different with the kind of citation I most often encounter in art theoretical texts. There, the problem and methodology tend to be of the author's invention, if present at all, with little to no reference to other authors having worked on similar problems. But then when the author is drawing conclusions from their observations, various other authors are referenced who drew similar conclusions, so as to confirm and endorse the validity of the author's ideas. Quite naturally, there is no necessary relationship between the truth of a statement and the amount of times a statement has been uttered. So once again, this style of citation is therefore nothing but empty pretence attempting to veil a weakly constructed argument.
