How to succeed in science?
Alexei Poliakov
Thursday, 10 July 2008 13:15 UTC
I would like to discuss with the scientific community the prospects of pursuing a scientific career, which were described in essays “How to succeed in science: a concise guide for young biomedical scientists” by Jonathan W. Yewdell published in the May-June issues of the Nature Reviews of Molecular Cell Biology. I think that the solutions provided by Dr. Yewdell’s are one-sided and constitute basically an adaptation strategy, which is aimed to preserve troublesome status quo.
Unfortunately, my efforts to provide an alternative opinion from a more junior perspective were unsuccessful, and my letter “The next Newton’s apple” was rejected by the journal. The journal strongly supported the author’s position and dismissed my views as being cynical and very personal. Inspired by my colleagues, I have written a more philosophical letter “How to succeed in science on time” and send it to the Nature. This time the reason for the rejection was the limited space in the journal. Reading Nature that week, I realised that my letter might not be as important as some of the published correspondence, e.g. letter about clarification of the goal of the lunar-echo experiments or the dispute about more intelligent use of the word “design”.
Do you agree with my letters? Do you think the young scientists have the right to publish their opinion even though it is unconventional?
Updated 13 August 2009 13:06 UTC
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As another aside, I’ve re-read Yewdell’s articles and still stand by my opinion. One thing that strikes me, is that there is some discussion here of using number of publications as a metric for career evaluation. Yewdell is talking about Graduate School… Don’t worry about getting tons of papers in grad school, just focus on your training and move on. The same does not apply when working as a postdoc.
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Ian, you mean that a poor (or nonexistent) publication record doesn’t necessarily negatively affect a student’s chances of landing a good post-doc? I am very happy to hear it, if that’s the case. My institution placed an inordinate amount of pressure on students to publish. Those who didn’t, or didn’t publish well, were quietly written off. I think that runs contrary to the point of going to school. One goes to school to learn how to do science. You do a post-doc to actually do the science and publish it. That’s my view of things, in any case. Am I being idealistic?
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Thank you very much to everybody who has been commenting on my forum. Unfortunately, many people did not bother to register on the website to express their views in writing. However, I have received plenty of emails and verbal opinions so far. As many scientists have already agreed with me, Dr. Yewdell’s view is a wishful thinking, which I personally would die for it to be true.
My intentions were not reach the consensus and provide the solution or ultimate advice to the young scientists but rather give a food for thought. As you can see, the opinions are very polar, which indicates that the problem of careers in science is indeed of paramount importance. Interestingly, the high polarity of opinions is not only limited to career development aspects. Take for example public debate about peer review. After a letter in the Financial Times “Scientists need freedom to create Planck Club for this era” with a demand to revise scientific assessment criteria signed by a group of prominent scientists, a pro-peer review editorial letter “Reviewing Peer Review” appears immediately in Science.
The young scientists have to be aware about the current controversy in science in order to be prepared for the future challenges. In this regard mastering skills, especially if you are graduate student, should not be the first priority. I am sure many of us have come to the science to solve problems and multiply knowledge. That is why, while you are young you should sharpen your mind instead of your hands. Otherwise, you can end up as a hostage of method and become a specialist instead of professional. As Dr. Yewdell says himself “Knowing too much about a topic can actually be a barrier to discovery.” In the first place you have to learn to ask questions, identify important problems, propose hypothesis, and chose appropriate methods to test them. Thus, the expertise in skills is only a part of the scientific process.
Papers are not the best thing to aim for either but in the present reality they are the most valuable assets for a scientist. As I said in my letters, I hope we could find the right solution but for now it is up to you to find the right way, future Einsteins.
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