{"id":4765,"date":"2015-10-25T09:24:54","date_gmt":"2015-10-25T08:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/?p=4765"},"modified":"2015-10-30T12:41:55","modified_gmt":"2015-10-30T11:41:55","slug":"asking-the-right-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/2015\/10\/25\/asking-the-right-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Asking the Right Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The quote from CP Scott, long-time editor of the (Manchester) Guardian, elegantly says \u2018Comment is free, but facts are sacred.<\/em>\u2019 As a scientist I like gathering evidence, getting at the facts and so, when Paige Brown Jarreau<\/a> asked me to participate in her survey of science blogs it seemed like a good idea. If you haven\u2019t already completed her survey<\/a> then perhaps now (until October 30th; now extended to November 20th<\/strong>) is a good time to do so. Her inducement to me, and other participants, was that from the analysis I would learn useful things such as why readers are motivated to read my blog, what they perceive I\u2019m doing effectively in terms of content (and presumably what I\u2019m failing at) and something about the demographics of the readership, all information suitably anonymised.<\/p>\n

That opening quote of course implies that the facts are black and white. That may or may not be true even in such a simple task as someone ticking a box on a questionnaire. Unfortunately, when it comes to memory this most definitely isn\u2019t always so: there are many shades of grey when trying to remember something from the past, even if only yesterday. There are also those sorts of questions that people ask that instantly make you feel guilty, forgetful or as if you\u2019ve got the answer wrong. It can be entirely innocuous \u2013 the dentist asking me whether I\u2019m on any medication, for instance \u2013 yet still I can end up thinking \u2018was that right, did I forget something?\u2019<\/p>\n

Currently I seem to be being exposed to far too many interviews and, in that context I\u2019m rarely certain I got it \u2018right\u2019 or that, even with the best of intentions, that I\u2019m speaking the truth. Because, in some sense which no doubt the more philosophically-minded could label with some appropriate -ism one cannot speak the truth like this. Reinventing oneself 20, 30 or more years after the event, telling the questioner about things that happened in the school playground or why physics was obviously what I wanted to do when I first encountered it at 13, how much accuracy is there likely to be in that? And the more I get asked the questions the more I find \u2018suitable\u2019 answers that are liable to get stylised because they \u2018work\u2019 and yet they become a remembered reality rather than the truth.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to be difficult. I understand that someone carrying out research for their dissertation into what makes someone successful in academic science is bound to go back to how one started out. I am quite sure that it is relevant what sort of career advice I got at school (essentially none), whether my physics teacher was qualified in physics (she was) or had I been surrounded by family members who worked in STEM (I wasn\u2019t). Yet nevertheless it is all too easy to see how truth gets distorted. If asked whether my parents went to university the answer is no, neither of them did. Yet that masks the fact that other family members did and there was undoubtedly a view in the family that if I wanted to go to university, go I should. Saying that neither of my parents did so can give the impression I was the first in the family to participate in higher education and that was simply not so. So facts may be deeply misleading even when true.<\/p>\n

That answer is at least is a hard fact to which I know the answer. Another recent question, in another context and another interview, was to name and describe an object which had meant a lot to me as I was progressing in my academic life. Not something associated with my research, not a person \u2013 both of which are questions I\u2019ve had to answer before and which are comparatively easy \u2013 but an object. This question, like \u2018why did you choose physics?\u2019 doesn\u2019t really have an answer for me. However, \u2018don\u2019t know\u2019 I fear is not acceptable (not least because the interviewers want to illustrate it in this case, and an illustration of \u2018don\u2019t know\u2019 might be problematic).<\/p>\n

The example given was a fountain pen, in order to get my brain in gear, but this didn\u2019t really kickstart any fruitful line of thought. I am still struggling to come up with something that could possibly fit the bill. I tried to reconstruct my desk at different periods of my life, to see if there was some common thread, but I\u2019m not particularly into paperweights, gonks and mascots or pictures hanging above my workspace so that didn\u2019t get me far. I\u2019ve a germ of an idea which, by some stretch of the imagination might work for the purpose, but it\u2019s not satisfactory to have to do this.<\/p>\n

So, seeking evidence is all very well but what if the question posed is the wrong question, as I feel of the search for an object? That of course is so often what one\u2019s research reveals. The answer does not lie in the question asked and one has to stop, think again, dream up another hypothesis and another set of experiments. It\u2019s a challenge. It\u2019s exciting when finally the right question is identified. But that is not how the interviewer trying to turn my life into\u2026.whatever it is they\u2019re trying to turn it into operates.<\/p>\n

The myth of the myth of the great (wo)man in science may lurk behind too many of the questions, implicitly assuming that dig out my bio and all will be revealed about why I made it to professor and the young woman at the lab bench next to me did not. I am not sympathetic to the idea of the \u2018lone genius<\/a>\u2019 anyhow, but I also think 1000 words trying to describe me from childhood to professor is unlikely to reveal with much certainty what actually helped along the way. If I don\u2019t know the answers, how can I respond to the questions? If they\u2019re the wrong questions anyhow, only some dubious construction of a faint verisimilitude of me might emerge. The evidence may not help and the apparent facts be less than sacred.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Help\u00a0us do science!<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ve teamed up with researcher\u00a0Paige Brown Jarreau<\/a>\u00a0to create a\u00a0survey of Athene Donald\u2019s Blog readers (as well as 49 other blogs) during October – now running till Nov 20th<\/strong>. By participating, you\u2019ll be helping me improve my own blog and contributing to SCIENCE on blog readership. For completing the survey, readers will be entered into a draw for a $50.00 Amazon gift card (100 available, or guaranteed 2 per specific blog included in this survey), plus FREE science art from Paige\u2019s Photography<\/a> for participating, as well as a chance to win a t-shirt and other perks! It should only take 10-15 minutes to complete.\u00a0You can find the survey here:\u00a0http:\/\/bit.ly\/mysciblogreaders<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Updated Oct 30<\/strong> to reflect extension of survey date<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The quote from CP Scott, long-time editor of the (Manchester) Guardian, elegantly says \u2018Comment is free, but facts are sacred.\u2019 As a scientist I like gathering evidence, getting at the facts and so, when Paige Brown Jarreau asked me to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[965,583,316],"class_list":["post-4765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-culture","tag-careers","tag-hypotheses","tag-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4765\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}