Thursday, February 12, 2009
Scientific Evolution
I was thinking about all the hype at the moment about 200 years of Darwin and started to get a bit irritated. For me science is all about the NEW and EXCITING! I love being a scientist as I get to do and see things no one has ever seen before and it gives me a real buzz. I love going to conferences, even when they are in wet, unglamorous holiday villages in run down ex-industrial towns (somehow I have totally missed out going to conferences anywhere hot and sunny and sophisticated). I love hearing what cool new experiments people have designed, I love hearing how the field is evolving and developing.
For me science is dynamic and ever changing and the emphasis on 200 years of Darwin or 50 years of Einstein or other narrow people focused things seem very un-science to me. It's more of a personality cult and opinion rather than facts and new theories and current ideas and generally regressive rather than progressive. Obviously the whole scientific field based on evolution is still current and progressive and hopefully getting some positive exposure reflected from the current Darwin based celebrations but everything in the general media seems to be looking back rather than seeing forward or worse it's mired in the whole evolution/intelligent design 'debate'.
For me science is dynamic and ever changing and the emphasis on 200 years of Darwin or 50 years of Einstein or other narrow people focused things seem very un-science to me. It's more of a personality cult and opinion rather than facts and new theories and current ideas and generally regressive rather than progressive. Obviously the whole scientific field based on evolution is still current and progressive and hopefully getting some positive exposure reflected from the current Darwin based celebrations but everything in the general media seems to be looking back rather than seeing forward or worse it's mired in the whole evolution/intelligent design 'debate'.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Earning your keep
I'm really irritated with my old phd supervisor and his student/post doc. I have been nagging this student, Gamesboy, to get his thesis organised and planned pretty much since he started (in totally his best interests as I knew how crap our supervisor is when it comes to actually getting a thesis written and submitted). Anyhow he is now into his 4th unpaid writing up year of his PhD. Which isn't so bad except he has written hardly anything. A decent stab at some of the general introduction topics and one decent method development/characterisation chapter but there is still lots and lots to write up (and in my eyes quite a few actual proper experiments to do to prove it's a sensible method).
Anyhow what is really bugging me is that the start of the year he started on a post doc contract following on closely to his PhD project (basically more characterisation and applications of the method he has developed and pimped up beyond belief during his PhD). I'm really chuffed for him that he got the post doc and continue with this new method except that he is doing bugger all work as far as I can tell. I know it's nothing to do with me but I think back to when I was still finishing off writing up my thesis and working as a post doc I worked really hard at the day job and did the thesis in the evenings/weekends/spare time to get it done as I felt bad not doing what I was being paid for i.e. the post doctoral work.
Anyhow what is really bugging me is that the start of the year he started on a post doc contract following on closely to his PhD project (basically more characterisation and applications of the method he has developed and pimped up beyond belief during his PhD). I'm really chuffed for him that he got the post doc and continue with this new method except that he is doing bugger all work as far as I can tell. I know it's nothing to do with me but I think back to when I was still finishing off writing up my thesis and working as a post doc I worked really hard at the day job and did the thesis in the evenings/weekends/spare time to get it done as I felt bad not doing what I was being paid for i.e. the post doctoral work.
Monday, February 02, 2009
two-for-one papers
Is it me or are more and more papers shoving all the important 'beef' of the paper into supporting information. Maybe it's just random that the few papers I've noticed and got round to reading in detail all have heaps and heaps of supporting data. I can understand sticking in videos or large images which don't go into regular print papers but the supporting information I've been reading have been as long as the original paper and covered all sorts of (to me at least) important methods and analysis details. I guess it's good that the detail is provided with the paper but it seems to make the original, actual paper a bit thin and annoying, especially when you keep referring between two bits of paper to try and get an overall view of the authors aims and conclusions.
The other thing which gets me is that the supporting information seems to be a lot of methods and characterisation and as someone who's research is primarily method development/improvement it's really irritating. For me I always like to read through method details carefully as my pet hate is seeing a really interesting result in a paper and then realising that the methods are a bit duff. I used to be the sort of person who always skimmed over the methods in a paper but given my current research it's probably the bit I read in most detail and sends me screwy when I see stupid analysis (my pet hate is Lineweaver-Burk plots in enzyme kinetics - how are they still allowed these days!) and poor experimental design or lack of demonstrable controls.
The other thing which gets me is that the supporting information seems to be a lot of methods and characterisation and as someone who's research is primarily method development/improvement it's really irritating. For me I always like to read through method details carefully as my pet hate is seeing a really interesting result in a paper and then realising that the methods are a bit duff. I used to be the sort of person who always skimmed over the methods in a paper but given my current research it's probably the bit I read in most detail and sends me screwy when I see stupid analysis (my pet hate is Lineweaver-Burk plots in enzyme kinetics - how are they still allowed these days!) and poor experimental design or lack of demonstrable controls.
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