The old lie

~ Brooke Morriswood ~ 6 Comments

2016-02-07 13.12.53

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 →

The experience trap

~ Brooke Morriswood ~ 8 Comments

PhD party

The candidates for a postdoctoral fellowship, all “fresh” from defending their PhD*. Current eligibility criteria say they’re all the same age in scientific terms, despite huge variations in the length of time spent in postgraduate study.

What’s the fairest way of allocating funds to individual scientists? That, at heart, is the puzzle that has led to the generation of the experience trap. There is a limited pool of money available (in terms of fellowships and grants), and there has to be a means of winnowing the field to ensure that the number of applicants is not unmanageably large.

There is, rightly, no discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race and so on, and it’s the first of these factors that is the most significant (and praiseworthy). No discrimination at all on the basis of age. So if you decide, at the age of 42, that your office job no longer satisfies and what you’ve always wanted to do is a be a scientist, you can enrol for a PhD and on its completion, apply for fellowships on an equal footing with your new peers.

Or will you? Continue reading →