Category: Curiosities of Nature

Why to avoid a science career…

Yep:

“Academia’s Crooked Money Trail”, by Beryl Lieff Benderly, over at Science Careers

The troubles plaguing academic science — including fierce competition for funding, dismal career opportunities for young scientists, overdependence on soft money, excessive time spent applying for grants, and many more — do not arise, Stephan suggests, from a shortage of funds. In 2009, she notes, the United States spent nearly $55 billion on university- and medical school–based research and development, far more than any other nation.

The problems arise, Stephan argues, from how that money is allocated: who gets to spend it, where, and on what. Unlike a number of other countries, the United States structures university-based research around short-term competitive grants to faculty members. The incentives built into this system lead universities to behave “as though they are high-end shopping centers,” she writes. “They turn around and lease the facilities to faculty in [exchange for] indirect costs on grants and buyout of salary…” Continue reading “Why to avoid a science career…”

Progress in biology?

“I came to work at the MRC Unit for the Study of Structure of Biological Systems in September of 1951…The then tiny unit, composed of Max Perutz, John Kendrew, Francis Crick, and Hugh Huxley, with Sir Lawrence Bragg, the Cavendish Professor, as its very involved patron, had as its objective the understanding of life at its deepest level, the molecular. By so doing, they hoped to transofrm biology from a morass of seemingly limitless and often boring facts into an intelectually satisfying discipline like physics and chemistry.”

– James Watson, “Minds That Live For Science”, in A Passion for DNA.

60 years later:

“Biology is entering a period where the science can be underlaid by explanatory and predictive principles, rather than little bits of causality swimming in a sea of phenomenology.”

– Eric Davidson, quoted in Erica Check Hayden,”Life is Complicated,” Nature April 1, 2010

Will we ever escape from the morass of limitless, boring facts?

On reading The Double Helix

I recently reread The Double Helix because I am interested in understanding why people began thinking that the structure of DNA was an important problem. Watson and Crick are the most famous 20th century biologists – if you ask a random person on the street to name a 20th century biologist, the most likely response is a blank stare, but the second most likely response is Watson and Crick. Why? Why did the structure of DNA turn out to be so enlightening, and why did people think it was an important problem in the early 50’s?

I first read this book in the 90’s before I became a scientist, and so I missed much of Watson’s insight into how scientists sniff out and pursue a good problem. Watson argues that only a few key people were thinking of DNA as being the key to heredity, but things clearly weren’t going to stay that way for long – DNA’s significance would soon be recognized, and so those hoping to solve the problem had to work fast before more competitors arrived.

The key to understanding The Double Helix is to figure out when Watson is accurately describing the quirky way in which scientific personalities interact in the process of pursuing hot science, and when Watson is being an asshole. Continue reading “On reading The Double Helix”

Eric Lander knows the secret to success

He reveals it in today’s NY Times:

After his morning workout, he sometimes goes to a local bakery where he can work quietly

Sometimes the key to getting things done is knowing where to hide. The other secret to success is luck:

“I feel like it’s so incredibly lucky to end up here,” he said. “I could not have planned this. What if I hadn’t met David Botstein? What if I hadn’t gone to a meeting where the human genome was discussed? I have no idea. This is as random as it gets.”

It’s frightening just how random it is, particularly if you’re outside the inner circle. (There’s always that inner circle, the one I’m never inside of, even though I’ve also met David Botstein.) There is no doubt that Lander is exceptionally talented, and skilled at sniffing out key opportunities, but part of the story is being lucky to find yourself in those circles where opportunities are offered. The name of the institution where you work matters a great deal when it comes to making first impressions, regardless of your other qualifications.

Darwin on how to be a scientist

Great prostrate silicified trunks of trees, embedded in a conglomerate, were extraordinarily numerous. I measured one which was fifteen feet in circumference: how surprising it is that every atom of the woody matter in this great cylinder should have been removed and replaced by silex so perfectly that each vessel and pore is preserved! These trees flourished at about the period of our lower chalk; they all belonged to the fir-tribe. It was amusing to hear the inhabitants discussing the nature of the fossil shells which I collected, almost in the same terms as were used a century ago in Europe,–namely, whether or not they had been thus “born by nature.” My geological examination of the country generally created a good deal of surprise amongst the Chilenos: it was long before they could be convinced that I was not hunting for mines. This was sometimes troublesome: I found the most ready way of explaining my employment was to ask them how it was that they themselves were not curious concerning earthquakes and volcanos?–why some springs were hot and others cold?–why there were mountains in Chile, and not a hill in La Plata? These bare questions at once satisfied and silenced the greater number; some, however (like a few in England who are a century behindhand), thought that all such inquiries were useless and impious; and that it was quite sufficient that God had thus made the mountains.

– Voyage of The Beagle, Chapter XVI

One of the remarkable features of this book is Darwin’s relentless commitment to a scientific point of view. He asks questions nobody around him thinks to ask, and he is unsatisfied with answers not based in observable evidence and reasoned thought.