The most important equilibrium in research isn’t chemical, it’s psychological. It’s the one that governs the oscillation between confidence and doubt. Continue reading
Life at the bench
Ticket to Ride
Science counts as one of the very few truly international careers out there – not simply being in an office somewhere else in the world, but actually working alongside people of all nationalities, races, and creeds. The current lingua franca for publications and conferences may be English, but the average scientific institute or department is a Babel of different tongues depending on who’s talking to who and when.
What do you get from going abroad? Some opportunities are the same as would come from relocation within your own country – a chance to learn new techniques, and bring something new to the group that you join. In that sense then, if you originate from a research powerhouse like the USA, Germany, UK, or France then in theory there’s little reason to cross the border and seek your fortune somewhere else.
Or is there? Continue reading
Fail to learn (a personal confession)
I hate making mistakes. Worse than that, I fear making mistakes. The realisation that I’ve made an error – or sometimes, just the thought that I might have made an error – is enough to bring on pinpricks of sweat, an urge to run away, and a noticeable loss of composure. Continue reading
Facts, figures, and rhetoric
What’s the real purpose of scientific figures?
There’s a common misconception that they’re to show what we did. Continue reading
The old lie
I remember reading an anecdote about a meeting between Francis Crick and an eminent biochemist (I’m pretty sure it was Erwin Chargaff). Chargaff came away highly unimpressed by Crick, which seems bizarre nowadays when Crick is revered as a kind of demigod. The reason for Chargaff’s disdain? Crick, he said, seemed to exemplify the worst aspects of the British system, namely “all talk and no action”.
It’s a neat reminder of what we now refer to as “the American work ethic” swept away. High-minded gentlemen scientists sitting around in armchairs in club rooms doing thought experiments, and occasionally deigning to publish their insights. Theorising, theorising, theorising. Very little actual “doing”.
That’s what the work ethic replaced. Why do the thought experiment when you could do the actual experiment? And the powerhouse performance of American academia in the 20th century is all the validation that’s needed of that more practical approach.
But there’s a sense now that the pendulum may have swung too far the other way. Continue reading
