So I never really introduced this blog. Since I am not really sure who is reading it (anyone?) I want to take an opportunity to say a few things, if only as kind of a mission statement for my own reference.
First off, this blog is about mulling through the big ideas in science. I've noticed that graduate school often follows a long decline from the big picture to a sort of niche myopia, where you are aware only of the things going on in your subfield. The technical details of the day to day work of research overwhelm those high minded considerations that made science interesting in the first place. There are so many exciting things happening in biological research, and cancer research in particular, that I think deserve a wider conversation.
Secondly, I want to write about the culture of science and science education. In some ways science is nothing more than a culture. It's a way of thinking about ideas, communicating those ideas and evaluating their utility. The way we do science is inherently linked to the institutions we've built up to pursue it. Better technology and better science is as much about designing the right culture of inquiry as designing the right experiment.
Thirdly, I hope to improve, if slightly, my communication of scientific ideas. I hope to make each post clear, contained and concise. For some reason the scientific writing style has become an impenetrable thicket of technical language. So many of the journal articles I have read are accessible only to the most up-to-date members of the field. They can be unreachable even to those using the same model organism, but studying different areas. To my mind this is a deep weakness. An idea is only as good as its communicability, and while it's great to be the first to discover something you've done very little if it doesn't reach the person who can use it to maximal impact. Wherever possible I hope to practice avoiding the technical language and giving the complete background.
Lastly I want to have a record of my naive youthful hopes and dreams when I'm a grizzled senior grad student so that maybe I can keep the flame alive when the going gets rough.
well said Will. This idea of objective science we've been taught - where the discovery itself and technical details constitute its value is false. Context matters (your second point) and only a dedication to communicating science well will break us out of our siloed efforts. One challenge I find is the expression of critical thoughts about other's science. It's tricky because no one wants to be negative, or use "judgement", but without this we loose so much valuable dialogue. thoughts?
ReplyDeleteThe best I can come up with is "Judge the science, not the scientist". But I agree that it's nearly impossible not to appear to be attacking someone personally when you argue against their entire line of inquiry. I usually like to cut "basic" scientists a break because I figure that you never know where the next revolution will come from. But given the amount of good, clinically or technologically applicable work that's out there to be done, it's hard to justify some of the esoteric fiefdoms some PIs are holed up in.
ReplyDeleteImpenetrable thicket. I miss the days when scientific literature contained plant metaphors.
ReplyDeleteThey actually use the phrase in IP law too - a patent thicket, that is when rights to various technologies needed to produce a single product are held by different parties and since its hard to get them to play nice with each other there's a big barrier. Eg a vaccine where patents for the adjuvant, epitope, scaling process, delivery system, etc are held by different players.
ReplyDeletePS what other plant metaphors are you thinking of?
ReplyDelete