“I can categorically say I hate impact factors!” by Nobel Laureate Martin Chalfie.
I normally do not follow Nobel prize laureate’s lectures. One reason is that I kind of become a bit bitter and sceptical towards big guys’ flashy lectures after all those years of conferences and seminars. And the other and more critical reason is that I don’t have much peace of mind (or even actual time) to sit relaxed and to watch them. But with this spicy title, I had to click this interview clip (We come back to Impact factor in another post). And then it was followed by his other more lengthy talk about his journey toward receiving 2008 Nobel prize in Chemistry. While doing that he also shares the myth about ‘what scientists are’. It was one of the most amazing 90 mins I spent listening to a scientist. I cannot help myself but share it here. But don’t worry there is a short 3 minutes version with a similar message. And below is the long 90 min one.
While the storytelling and also his scientific achievements are both amazing but the content grabs my mind was his description of myth about scientists. The 5 key myths are related to the common self-hatred questions for young research nomads. I think it might be worth to check out if you are feeling burning out, or having imposter syndrome. For me, his perspective is quite relatable because I am in an experimental side of science as similar to him.
Scientists are geniuses:
Some but certainly not all or not at all times. He described him as not a genius (or at least not from the early years), saying getting B grades does not mean you cannot be a scientist. He himself says his transcript from the university is not that amazing. Well, this is a partial myth because we know lots of successful scientists are crazily bright in all brainy aspects, getting the perfect marks. But the lesson he wants to give (and I want to relate) is that it is not mandatory. It is one of the arsenals that can help you but not the only one.
Scientists’ experiments always work:
Rarely. He simply states the fact. Research is usually filled with failures. It is not because we are dumb, it is because the problems we want to tackle are usually difficult. Even the question could turn out to be unanswerable with current technology. I did not know this when I get into grad school, I thought just hard-working and being smart would be only two ingredients for success in research. But the important warning was missing, you should know how to handle endless failures and learn/recover from them. Mental burnout can come easily for you because the method we subconsciously trained ourself to get good grades does not work with the same effectiveness in scientific research. And I have to add one more thing to this, the current system is biased towards to hypothesis confirmed result. That says normally no journals would publish ‘we did this, but it did not work’. So it can give us a false impression that all the good scientist always got good results. In relation to this, there is another nice youtube clip with even dipper and different point of view. I recommend ‘Is Most Published Research Wrong?’ by youtube channel Veritasium.
Scientists use the scientific method:
Rarely, usually after a discovery. This one needs a careful touch. He quotes Physicist Enrico Fermi “If the result confirms the hypothesis, then you’ve made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you’ve made a discovery.” I think what he wants to say here is not undermining our process of hypothesis and testing process. We make hypothesis and tackle, then repeat. That is what we do, scientific reasoning methodology. I think what he wants to say is that sizable discoveries would be a little bit of outreach to the current knowledge ballon. So if we are too much obsessed with coming up with a perfect plan or idea, it would be a waste of our time. Lots of experiments are needed before we see some unusual stuff. Then we do the reverse process to understand this newly revealed phenomenon. Of course with the scientific method.
Scientists work alone:
Rarely. In current days this is really true. If you are reluctant to do a collaboration or working with people who are, think again. Recently how many big works have been done with only a small group of people? We saw remarkable work from one person in 1900s, but now the time has been changed. Topics are routinely connected, one discovery excited different fields, so many instruments are needed in one project. Maybe one can say that it is because we already find out obvious stuff and remained ones are complicated. But I think we are also getting more efficient and faster by collaboration. Speed of scientific growth is faster than before by this accumulative and collaborative manner. So if you deny collaboration without any good reason, you are missing the party.
Scientist is done by white men:
Nonsense. This also needs more interpretation. This one is more in the future tense. More like he wishes. And he actually shows the list of famous figures in science, which is predominantly white male, European and American origin. Then he shows his lab members, mixed gender, nationality, it is diverse. The message is the direction we have to go. Any ethnicity or gender can do good science. We are losing potential great scientists by excluding them. In other interview, he talks about gender ratio in his department which is still not enough. So he is raising awareness and try to encourage young scientist.
Probably my taste interprets his lessons with a slight twist. But I was happy to hear some of his idea about scientists. It quenched my thirst of wondering about ‘what makes a scientist’. Things I vaguely have realised recently by myself (with fragile confidence) after lots of trial and errors in my works are endorsed by a successful scientist like him. Surely I should not lean on his fame to argue something, but damn it feels comforting.
Coffee Break Special 