‘The death of british science’? Really ?

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Sylvia McLain

I almost don’t feel I can comment -but of course I am going to anyway.

Today I watched, or rather half-watched via twitter and other media outlets, the protest about
‘the death of British science’.

The protesters, about 100 strong, according to the BBC website, are objecting to the the priority they feel has been given to industry related science over basic science. They have specifically targeted the EPSRC (the Engineering and Science Research Council) for this sin.

The EPSRC disagree with the protesters claims and issued what I thought was a very positive press release about maintaining the UK as a scientific world-leader. James Wilsdon from SPRU (University of Sussex) called for ‘research communities to unite than indulge in self-interested bickering‘. Mark Henderson, after a well-deserved shout out to Jenny Rohn for starting up Science is Vital, argued that this protest might actually hurt government science spending because it could imply ‘that a research council cannot be trusted to spend its money wisely’.

For the record, I should point out that I am currently funded by the EPSRC. I should also point out that I am not funded in one of their strategic priority areas, at least under the remit I was funded from.

In some ways I agree with the over-arching theme of the protesters. I DO think we should fund basic science but I also believe the government has to fund some industrial science too. I think most academic scientists in the UK largely agree. Five minutes on the UK science blogosphere certainly supports this view, not to mention there is already action group which has established itself in 2010 to address scientific funding issues – Science is Vital.

On the other hand I am not sure this isn’t a case of not seeing the forest for the trees. Everyone that I have interacted with at EPSRC has been very positive (and worried) about what is going on with funding cuts – they are, after all, the people having to administer these cuts. I am not saying I unilaterally agree with all of their decisions, but in my experience they are available for a dialogue about these issues.

From watching Twitter, there were varied degrees of distaste – as well as deafening silence – from the usual science research supporters on the ‘Death of British science’. I personally found it all a bit puzzling as I was confused, really, about what exactly the protesters were protesting.

It rather left me with many questions that maybe the protesters can help answer.

1 – Are you protesting government spending cuts to the research councils? or the EPSRC?

2 – Do you have statistics (real data) on how funding is currently split by EPSRC? Did you collate this data?

3 – Did you try to coordinate with Science is Vital – who could possibly help you think of ways to move forward when discussing with the EPSRC?

4 – Did you try to contact the EPSRC and set up a meeting?

5 – Why do you feel the need to invoke Stalin? I understand you are in fear of the ‘death of science’ but Stalin killed real people, which is much worse than spending cuts on anything. Do you know that much about science in Soviet Russia? I personally don’t but I do not think comparisons like this are particularly helpful, why do you?

I think I am not alone in my confusion. I had a non-academic friend phone me up today to ask me what it was all about. This is in contrast to Science is Vital where it was pretty clear to everyone. The point of a public protest is to make abundantly clear what it is you are protesting.

I don’t think it’s wrong to be concerned about research council funding decisions, in fact as fundees it is almost a duty to be concerned, but I am not sure a protest was warranted in this case. I also want to clearly state I am not being sarcastic, these are genuine questions I want to ask. As my Department Head said in a recent staff meeting, “we have to think about how to move forward in this rocky funding landscape” and the ‘Death of British Science’ protest didn’t seem to be a move forward to me.

Posted in Death of British Science, science funding | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

To equate or not to equate

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Sylvia McLain

maths

One of our jobs, working in academia, is giving talks. I don’t mean teaching, but rather presenting research. Lately I have had a spate of talks to give, largely as a result of being new in my Department.

My research involves maths, or rather the underlying principles of what I do involves quite alot of maths. When I give a talk sometimes I use equations and sometimes I don’t. It depends what I am talking about and who I am talking to. I have been thinking lately about when and when not to use maths in a presentation. I have also been polling people – my friends and my colleagues – to ask them what they think about equations in presentations.

About a third of the people I asked said – you should never have equations in a talk. Absolutely never, full stop. The challenge is to explain what you do without ever ‘resorting’ to an equation.

I think it is very good and indeed a challenge to be able to explain your research entirely in words. However, I am not sure I agree that a ‘just say no’ to equations mentality is the right way to go. While you don’t have to make equations the focal point of everything, why should you not talk about maths if mathematics is integral to what you do?

I think there is an assumption that most people will be put off by maths? Perhaps most people are but is this the right response? To just ignore equations completely? There may well be some people that might WANT to see the maths, I know sometimes I do.

While it is true that sometimes equations seem to be used in lieu of saying ‘I can’t really explain what I am talking about so I will put in a big equation‘, I think the real trick is to learn how to explain research both mathematically and in words. Especially if maths is a large part of your research. If you learn how to do both you can adjust any lecture accordingly.

I don’t think we should be afraid of maths. Systematically leaving equations out of talks isn’t necessarily the best thing to do, especially if you can talk someone through the equation. For instance, one of the underlying equations I use is just a sum, it is rare you find someone who just can’t add. So what is so bad about saying “This equation is a sum. Fundamentally what you measure in this experiment is just a sum of things and here is how you understand this equation…..”

Posted in maths, science communication | Tagged , | 3 Comments

On being wrong – or not completely right

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Sylvia McLain

Stephen J Gould is one of my heroes, one of my favourite scientists. One of his best books, in my opinion, is The Mismeasure of Man – which was written in part to challenge the use of IQ tests, phrenology and other ’empirical methods’ to type people. Typing people in this manner is a dangerous game and Gould in his book very deftly explains how statistics can be misinterpreted and importantly cautions against establishing false causal relationships (such as Baroness Greenfield’s dictum ‘I point to the increase in autism and I point to internet use’).

Stephen J Gould

Gould in his day job was an evolutionary biologist who disagreed with much that was written in Dawkins’ tome ‘The Selfish Gene’; the mechanism of evolution, the presence of gaps in the fossil record, the gene being the fundamental unit of evolution (Gould thought it was the species).

In recent years, after his death, there have been several articles and blogs which attack Gould for being a fraudster who claim he ‘committed the moral equivalent of deliberate scientific fraud.’ Gould allegedly stole someone else’s idea and if this weren’t bad enough it is asserted that he had no credibility amongst other evolutionary biologists (such as Richard Dawkins and EO Wilson). This seems a bit far-fetched to me. Just because he disagreed with Dawkins (and Wilson) doesn’t mean he is not credible and why accuse Gould of ‘stealing ideas’ if not Dawkins whos ideas are reflected by EO Wilson (who predates Dawkins).

Gould also claimed that bias is inevitable in science and that we must be aware of this. Gould wasn’t a conspiracy theory kind of guy, I would argue, he just had a more gentle point about unconscious bias. In July last year, a group of scientists remeasured some skull volumes Gould had originally measured to point out bias in an older phrenology investigation. They came to the conclusion Gould was wrong and the original researcher (who was openly biased) was correct.

The title of this article (and tag line) in ‘New Scientist’ is:
Gould’s skulls: Is bias inevitable in science? Stephen Jay Gould claimed unconscious bias could affect even seemingly objective scientific measurements. Not so

Despite its enticing headline, if you read the article itself, it doesn’t appear that the authors are vehemently disagreeing with Gould but are rather saying that Gould might in fact be biased. I can’t help but thinking this might make Gould happy. He was the first to admit he himself was biased.

Does any of this make Gould a ‘bad’ or ‘fraudulent’ scientist? No, not at all. Let me tell you why.

Dawkins and Gould disagreed about some of the fundamental drivers of evolution. They both came up with a hypothesis of how evolution occurs. Both of these hypotheses are consistent with a set of available data. A scientific theory is an educated guess which is consistent with a set of observable data. Both Gould’s hypotheses AND Dawkins’ hypotheses are perfectly valid scientific guesses – and neither has YET been proven right or wrong. A particular ‘selfish gene’ which can prove or disprove Dawkins, for instance, has not been discovered. This is how the scientific method works.

Secondly, did Gould steal his ideas? This is impossible to prove and science is often, for lack of a better word, repetitive and has much to do with the current Zeitgeist. If you read the literature about a subject any subject, often people are saying similar things in many different ways. ‘Who said it first’ is difficult to establish, especially when ‘who said it first’ is not well known.

Both opposing hypotheses and replication of ideas happen every day, in fact I would say this is part of the routine of practising science

My old post-doc supervisor sent me a paper he is about to submit last week, asking me what I thought about it. In this paper, my old boss has partially disproven a hypothesis that arose from some work he and I did about 7 years ago. He came to his current conclusions by measuring some NEW data which weren’t available at the time of our first publication. The upshot is a part of what I hypothesized was happening in my paper is ‘wrong’ while a part of my hypothesis remains correct. I thought this new paper was a great paper, it furthers our understanding and modifies our original hypothesis. This is how science works at its best.

Also this week my post-doc found a new paper which fully supports a hypothesis I made a few years ago. The authors didn’t cite my original work. Does this mean they stole my idea? No. It mostly likely means that they haven’t seen my publication or read my original hypothesis. This is not abnormal, there is a giant amount of literature out there and scientists don’t all read the same journals.

Often things are much milder than they seem and science is about getting it wrong sometimes.

Posted in evolution, richard dawkins, Stephen J Gould | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Communication, communication, communication

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Sylvia McLain

Alice Bell wrote a provocative piece in Times Higher Education, ‘Wider open spaces’, where she calls for science communication to be MORE open, rather than just opening access to specialist journals. The open access ‘movement’ (for lack of a better term) has recently catapulted its call for scientific journals to be accessible to all to the UK national spotlight on the front page of The Guardian.

Alice wants more. More openness, more communication, in her own words:

I want more than a journal boycott. Academics must take time to translate their work and seek and build relationships with people other than their immediate colleagues. They should demand that their supervisors and funders take the time they spend on this seriously.

Bold stuff.

I tweeted this article today saying:

Hmm a bit harsh on scientists, but @alicebell makes some good points : for @timeshighered on open access hype: http://bit.ly/IPt7d1

Alice replied:

@girlinterruptin with repect, if you think that I think you’re being over defensive, but apologies if my clumsy prose prompted that reaction.

Alice’s prose is not clumsy, she writes very well.

So am I being overly defensive? Perhaps, but what I would I be being overly defensive of?

I think Open Access is a good idea (as does Alice) but unlike Alice, I don’t think its PR puff, I think its a step in the right direction. It may just be the tip of the iceberg but its a tip. A tip is better than an iceberg under the water about to rip your boat in half. It’s also one of the few times I have seen such a mass of academic scientists unite on an issue. Scientists are people and like all groups of diverse people getting them to agree on anything is well nigh impossible.

I also think its a good idea to widen that discussion.

Do I need to communicate better? Undoubtably
Do I need to learn to write better? Unquestionably
Do I need to engage more? Of course
Do I ask people for help with these very things? Yes all of the time

If I am defensive of anything it is only that I am attempting to do these things. And I am not alone in this, I know a lot of scientists that are attempting to do these things. This is pretty evident from the large number of science blogs around (like here at Occam’s Typewriter).

Many of my colleagues, especially those like me in their early careers as a PI, care an awful lot about communication but often feel they don’t have the time to do this. After all you do have to produce science in order to communicate about it.

I did feel quite defensive when I read this:

I will get really excited only when science finally deals with the issues of social, cultural and economic exclusion rather than revelling in its elite status.

I don’t feel like I have any kind of ‘elite’ status and am much less revelling in it. I am trying to engage – as most people who are likely to read the THE or this blog or Alice’s blog probably are. I think the revellers are down at the pub and could care less about this whole debate.

Posted in Open Access, science communication | Tagged , | 27 Comments

Why can’t we write like other people write?

Posted on March 24, 2012 by Sylvia McLain

Another blog about scientific writing appeared on Friday by Adam Ruben.
It contains all of the standard complaints, albeit in a humorous way, about why scientific writing is basically dull, turgid and opaque.

Adam concludes that:

But there’s a reason scientific journal articles tend to be dry, and it’s because we’re writing them that way. We hope that the data constitutes an interesting story all by itself, but we all know it usually doesn’t. It needs us, the people who understand its depth and charm, to frame it and explain it in interesting ways.

Are scientific journals dry and dull? Beauty is, often, in the eye of the beholder.

I have been running some NMR experiments this week. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (NMR) is a great technique. By using atomic nuclear spin, you can use NMR to measure the environment atoms find themselves in.
NMR of ethanol

This is a simple example of a hydrogen 1-D NMR spectra for ethanol.
The single peak on the far left is the OH hydrogen, the peaks in the middle are the CH2 hydrogens and the peaks on the right are the CH3 hydrogens. If you make a new molecule which has hydrogens, you can dissolve it in ethanol and then see where this new molecule’s hydrogens show up. From the new peaks which appear in the NMR spectrum you can make a deduction about the structure of your new molecule.

Did I spend the week running NMR spectra for new lovely molecules I made? No. I spent the week collecing NMR spectra for all of my solvents. Eventually, I will dissolve my new lovely molecules in these solvents, eventually. NMR on regular old solvents is honestly a bit dull, but it does tell you if your solvents are pure which is kind of important. You want to make sure the apperance of a new peak is really about the molecule you WANT to see not just an impurity.

Unfortunately I had some random peaks in my NMR spectra for some of my solvents. How did I know what they were? I read a paper – which is one of the scientific world’s less interesting papers. Its called:

NMR Chemical Shifts of Common Laboratory Solvents as Trace Impurities
(J. Org. Chem. 1997, 62, 7512-7515)

Is this paper entertaining to read? Not really. Is this paper highly important and useful? Absolutely. Its been cited 851 times and I would think used much more than indicated by its citations.

Does this paper need to be written in a more accessible way? Not really. I, like most people who use this paper, don’t read the text so much as look at the tables, so I can identify that annoying little tiny impurity peak in my NMR solvent spectra.

If you look at the publication lists of many established scientists, these lists usually show publications in a variety of scientific journals – from the more generalist high impact journals (such as Nature and Science) to the Journal of Very Technical Details. Not all science belongs in the same journals and the writing styles are different for these different journal types. In a specialist journal, I personally don’t want to be entertained with flowery words and prose, I just want them to get to the point. I don’t care if its written in the 3rd, 4th or 8th person as long as it is clear. I also find these ‘dry’ journals pretty damn interesting because I am interested in the subject.

While I do take the point that science can be and maybe is often written in a dull way, not all science is going to be interesting to all people. The way science is written in some journals is just fine, just like any technical report on any subject.

Everything should be written in a way that achieves its particular goals. A phone directory written as poetry isn’t a very good phone directory. The ee cummins telephone tome would not only be unneccessary, it would actually be unhelpful. A scientific article in a technical journal is not written for a general non-specialist audience. A Nature paper should be written for a scientifically literate audience and an article about science in The Sun should be written for everyone.

Posted in NMR spectroscopy, science writing | Tagged , | 18 Comments

Received Wisdom – Who do you trust?

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Sylvia McLain

Science met the Media on Tuesday at the Royal Institution. It was an interesting event where science journalism was discussed between scientists and journalists. To me, the discussion was mostly journalists talking to journalists – more than scientists and journalists, and I am not sure anyone got much of anywhere but discussions are often like that and its always good to chat.

On the whole there were a lot of good questions/points from the audience, from Nicola Davis passionately speaking in favour of science journalists reading original sources, to a woman who asserted the MMR scandal was scientists’ fault because it was scientists that let this terrible story get through peer review.

The Twitter #riscimedia feed was also intriguing:

@NicolaKSDavis: Should science journalists use scientists’ blogs as sources? Or are they an unregulated medium which could cause mischief?

@JacquelynGill: Journalists could equally cultivate relationships with scientists they trust to help with jargon and context in papers.

While all of these things are seemingly unrelated, there is a central thread that unites them all. Who do you trust?

When do you seek sources? Do we all need to go and read the original literature on everything just to be sure? Do we trust blogs?

Life is too busy for everyone – scientists, journalists, economists, mums, dads – to read all of the original sources all of the time, it is just not possible. I like Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science blog where I trust him to read the sources so I don’t have to, then (mostly) I believe what he says. When I peer-review a scientific paper, I assume that the researchers aren’t just creating their data out of thin air. I assume they did the actual experiment they are showing me the data for. Usually when scientists out and out lie they don’t present the data they are lying about. Bold face lying in science is rare, most of the controversial science isn’t a matter of dishonesty, rather an over-interpretation of results.

Yes, blogs are unregulated, but blogs also give the opportunity to speak out, in their field of expertise, and give evidence-based counter-points to some particular science story which has appeared in the media. This is a good thing. So that anyone can observe scientific debate. This used to go on in peer-reviewed journals, but now it is in the public eye. This too is a good thing. I think this is such a good thing I wrote another post just about this a few weeks ago. Not to mention if it is really true that science journalists don’t really fact check their data, or only do “24% of the time” (as the #riscimedia feed indicates), isn’t media essentially unregulated too?

I think Jacquelyn Gill is spot on. Journalists could equally cultivate relationships with scientists they trust to help with jargon and context in papers.

I have jumped scientific field many times from Zoology to Evolutionary Biology to Chemistry to Physics and each time I am confronted with scientific publications I don’t necessarily understand. So I go and find someone in the field I can trust, to help me work my way through the jargon and context.

While we all have to be aware of received wisdom, it is valid to have a modicum of trust in your sources and to seek professional relationships with experts who can help you weave your way through new concepts. It’s why we have universities and schools and don’t just go read books or the internet in complete isolation.

All told, I thought it was an excellent event and certainly made me think about many issues. It is good to have discussion. I will end with my favourite tweet from the event:

@Stephen_Curry *sharp intake of breath* MT @Mariocracy wouldn’t scientists rather spend time writing a paper, instead of wasting time on blogs?

Posted in science and the media, science communication | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Oxford Dons – Leave the internet alone!

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Sylvia McLain

So we all know the story about Baroness Susan Greenfield and the internet and how she thinks it might be causing autism (among other things)

where she famously said:
“It could be the case that this different environment is changing the brain in an unprecedented way. It’s such an important issue and I’m just putting it before people to discuss.”

well this was the justification of earlier statments…

she also said
“I point to the increase in autism and I point to internet use. That’s all. Establishing a causal relationship is very hard but there are trends out there that we must think about.”

this reminds me a bit of that old Saturday Night Live (SNL) sketch with Linda Richmond when she would get ‘verklempt’ and say talk amongst yourselves – “I’ll give you a topic, Autism and the internet, Discuss.” SNL being a comedy show, Linda would announce all sorts of strange seemingly causal relationships, such as – “Global CO2 levels have been rising since the year I was born, talk amongst youselves” but you know on SNL this would be satire. Baroness Greenfield has brough satire to life (Voltaire must be rolling quite happily in the grave).

First of all Beware! of false causal relationships. Causal relationships, or causality are cause-effect relationships. These are pretty clear for many things in life. Like ” If I don’t show up to work, I am going to get sacked.” (of course that might depend on your job) or maybe slightly more universal – “If I don’t pay my rent, I will get evicted” Cause: rent not paid Effect: kicked out of home. However things like “CO2 levels have increased in the atomsphere ever since I was born” aren’t really my fault – except in the loose sense that I grew up in the Western world during a period of high CO2 output.

In scientific enquiry you spend alot of time looking for causal relationships that describe the physical world, in fact this is the majority of what we do. If I mutate this amino acid on the protein what happens to its structure and function? If I cause something, what is it effect. If I heat up a new compound I have synthesized, what happens to its hydrogen bonding regime? But as you can see from the above examples – these are single point causes then measuring effects.

But what Baroness Greenfield says is:

I point to the increase in autism and I point to internet use.

so simplistically you might say ohh increase in autism (effect) that must be a the internet (cause), and because Susan Greenfield is a Baroness and a academic scientist she must know what she is talking about. But life is more complex than that. So many people have covered this better than I. Just look at Martin Robbins about Greenfield (his last article is simply masterful) as is this. Professor Dorothy Bishop (also at Oxford) even wrote Susan Greenfield an open letter about this. Prof. Bishop is also at Oxford as am I so perhaps this blog post is mistitled – we aren’t all like that.

There may be a connection between brain development and the internet, who knows? But you have to test that one cause and effect at a time. Not make global overarching statements akin to “The American debt increases at the same time my [enter your favourite baseball/football team] keep losing. These things are NOT related.

Nor is the internet evil – which appears to be the underlying theme, with some…

OK so Susan Greenfield is Susan Greenfield.
but then I saw this clip with Richard Dawkins on Sunday

Here:

And well Richard Dawkins is Richard Dawkins and he likes to confuse science with religion (I have written about this here as a guest blog for Agora if you are interested) so this is kind of standard stuff from Dawkins BUT – listen carefully at about 5 minutes where he starts talking about the internet and all of the conspiracy theories on the internet – and how they are freely accessable.. eeks!

He says:
“Wikipedia world presents great opportunity and great danger.”

“Paranoid conspiracy theories circulate unchallenged…”

“Its one of the nasty lies (Jews being tipped off about 9/11) circulating as truth in the blog community of racists and religious fundamentalists. Now such people can find each other anywhere in the world instantly, whipping up scares and reinforcing their paranoias and delusions.”

Whoa, Richard. Some of these things might be true but the same thing can be said about books or what you hear at the drink fountain or down at the pub. How is this different from times of yore? I don’t think there was a dearth of paranoid conspiracy theories in the 70s, have you heard all of the theories about JFK being shot? Or Man not landing on the Moon being a government hoax? I still know people who believe this (who have obviously also not ever worked for the government) and I don’t think its down to the internet.

What Prof. Dawkins seems to forget is the Internet is also the very vehicle that allowed me to watch his video. The internet is also the thing that actually allows for public agreement and disagreement, and for him to send forth his own world view for that matter. And this happens fast. So NOW when Susan Greenfield says something dumb about autism and the internet, Dorothy Bishop can write a blog (which is widely read) explaining the problems with the Baroness’s statement and quickly. If anything the internet has IMPROVED these sort of interactions where before you might have to have a drink with Prof. Bishop to get her to explain what was wrong with the Greenfield theory, instead of being able to read it freely on the internet, no matter where you are!

Its not the internet that is corrupting us (if you think it is indeed is), the internet in our modern society is a fabulous thing. It is also a new strange thing where information fills us so fast we have to think of a different way to sort it perhaps, but people are people and internet or no, I am sure Profs. Dawkins and Greenfield could find the same problems in books or random conversations, only people like me might not get the chance to publically respond.

Posted in Internet, richard dawkins, Susan Greenfield | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Lady liberty: my new glove box

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Sylvia McLain

A few weeks ago I blogged about my new Schlenk Line and now there is a new addition to the lab.

My newest piece of BIG kit arrived Monday (unannounced). After a few weeks of tender, at most Universities if you buy anything over £25,000 you have to get bids, the lowest wins (well most of the time), after 18 weeks of ordering (waiting) she arrived! Straight from Munich – well ok really Garching, which is north of Munich.

The box was assembled – and then promptly disassembled for shipping. Sort of like the Statue of Liberty – I suppose. The Statue of Liberty was erected in Paris, then torn back down before she was shipped in lots and lots of boxes. Interestingly, the Statue of Liberty was paid for by French and American citizens – not the governments – in a pretty massive fund raiser for 1886.

After being torn back down my lovely glove box was driven to a port (Hamburg) and fastened in the most substaintial shipping crate I have ever seen. She made a smooth journey across the channel – which I know because of these nice tilt sensors:

tilt sensor

This is different than the Statue of Liberty who was almost lost at sea and well if I am really honest a Glove Box isn’t as monumental as a statue dedicated to a people who aspire to liberty ( at least in principle).

Anyway here she is – my brand new spiffy MBraun glove box.

Glove Box

where the inside atmosphere currently (or when I left this evening) was atmosphere containing < 1ppm O2 and atmosphere containing < 1ppm H2O – after a mere day of conditioning.

Here is another (front) view:
Glove box front

As you can see – the box is virtually empty – but not for long…

I think I am going to name my box Lady Liberty, but that might be a bit ostentatious…

Posted in science equipment | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Why am I writing this?

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Sylvia McLain

On scientific publication

I have been working on some publications, you know those results-based things that scientists write, submit, are peer-reviewed and with a bit of luck get published in a fantastic journal and then with not as much luck just a journal. As Stephen Curry pointed out a few weeks ago there is sort of a love-hate relationship with publishing in general and high impact publishing specifically.

I have a love-hate relationship with ‘high impact publishing’ – or A* or 4* or whatever it is called. On one level good science should go where it is most likely to be read and will have the highest impact, which in my research area (fortunately) is a fairly broad range of journals. On another level it does feel really good to get one of your papers in something that is considered high impact in your field. It sometimes (but not always) leads to higher readership. I think we are all secret divas, scientists, we do want people to read our papers so in a sense high impact publishing makes you feel like: ‘Yes the lights are on and my public has arrived!”

Diva
Scientist picture courtesy of Dorrie’s Comics and Cartoons

I am writing a few papers all at the same time, they are in various stages and I have various responsibilities for them. I am supreme corresponding author in one case, joint corresponding author in another and 3rd spear carrier in yet another. This is all good stuff, but one of the problems is that I don’t just sit and diligently work on one draft at a time (it almost makes me miss the days of being a PhD student). In fact I do other things and then sit down at my desk and start to pick up the plot again. Its a bit like leaving War and Peace for a few months – you forget who all of the characters are, with their various names and nicknames. While you may retain the gist of the plot that is pretty much it and you have to spend hours in the Glossary figuring out who is who. Or at least I do.

So I was struggling this week thinking; What was I doing? How did I do this analysis? and such like until I remembered… George Whitesides’ paper! George Whitsides’ essay entitled:

Whitesides’ Group: Writing a Paper

Its in the journal Advanced Materials (Wiley-VCH) – and is downloadable to anyone as a .pdf.

George Whitesides is a chemist at Harvard and has done oodles of chemistry and contributed much to the field but this paper on papers in itself is precious. It seems like something you’d think is pretty basic, and in many ways it is, you might even think to yourself – come on I know how to write a paper, I have written papers! Even though its tennants are simple, sometimes the simplest things are worth remembering. And for me it is helpful to stop a minute and think – wait, stop! Why am I writing this?

Posted in Peer review, scientific publishing | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

It’s in my guilt box…

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Sylvia McLain

A variant on the impostor syndrome (as blogged by Athene Donald)

A few weeks ago I bumped into one of my colleagues at the University – he is in a different Department and is a young (ish) PI like myself. I had sent him an email which he hadn’t had the time to respond to. So he says I am so sorry I’ve been meaning to respond, I will soon, its in my guilt box.

I know how he feels.

I have grants I need to finish, grants I need to start, papers I need to finish, research I need to start, students I need to talk to, a lab I need to finish building, a group to run, data analysis I need to do, meetings I need to go to, seminars I need to attend, talks I need to write. My guilt box is overflowing at the moment.

Its not that I am not getting anything done, I am, but one of my mental curses is that I never feel like I am getting enough done – its just that in my new role this feeling has grown from a low-level background growl to almost overwhelming, like some strange Dantean gluttony punishment, and like my Aunt Helen would’ve said ‘looks like you plate done disappeared’

Full plate

So what I am I doing blogging? In fact what I am doing not working ALL OF THE TIME. This can’t be normal.

Everyone else seems so calm.

Posted in Impostor syndrome | Tagged , | 14 Comments