Friday, March 17, 2017

Am I still a scientist?

This question came to me (again) a few weeks back when there was a meme on twitter asking to post a picture of yourself "as a scientist". I asked "Am I still a scientist?" (working as a project coordinator). The answer from three people was yes. (I ended up not posting a picture, mainly due to the pseud and not having a good "covered picture".)

Then I ran into it again in a conversation at work with some of my coworkers and a few post-docs looking for their next job. The identification and how important it might be to your self image that "I'm a scientist" and "what do you do in your job/life" and "what's your title". All of these things make a nice mess and confuse each other.

Then I listened to Recovering Academic podcast (found here). And tweeted "I found myself shifting views a lot during the episode" and sort of promising to write a blog post about it (and here I am... trying to make it coherent and relevant...) I'm sure this doesn't read as well as I wanted it to but I hope it gives a little insight in what I think about the whole thing. Feel free to add a comment and point out agreement, disagreement, confusions and other thoughts!

The short version

  • I started agreeing with the idea that "once a scientist always a scientist"
  • Although, not agreeing that your job is making you a scientist... but sometimes it does... but I'm not sure you should keep calling yourself a scientist if you leave science and work as a gravel layer...
  • the difference between "a job title" and "who you are"
  • that you could leave science but science doesn't leave you so you add on your new experience like a "modifier" to add to you (also called "the German discussion - addingwordstoeachother = makes a new word)
  • I missed an aspect in the episode - the EGO aspect where a lot of people would like it to be special (there was a lot of good thinking on being and needing to be inclusive, which I like) but science have a long tradition of not wanting to be inclusive
  • comparing "I am now [as in right this second]" compared to "I am now [as in generally now]"[also called "the Spanish lesson", making it tempting to say that other languages have more opportunities to explain this better than English, either by "adding words" or by using words that "explain a present state compared to 'over time'state" ;) ]

The long version
Isn't the whole question founded a little in the idea that being a scientist is "better"? I mean, how would you view someone who has worked as an actor for a few years in their twenties and then at 50 call themselves an actor? Or, someone who trained and worked as a teacher for a few years but then moved into a job as an accountant? Are they still a teacher? Based on experience or based on a degree or both?

I personally feel that there are a few jobs/callings/careers that make me think "you always stay somewhat in that role and can call your self that forever". Lawyer, judge, police, teacher, physician, university professor, welder, mechanic, coal miner...

As you can see I added a few things in the end, not necessarily the most obvious jobs but it touches on the "identity and authenticity" that we are surrounded with every day. The idea that when you self identify as "something", it brings you more credibility to that specific community as well as the touching communities. That a person who is identifying as scientist or coal miner will be accepted more by people who also identify as that.

[I realise I took the discussion a little too far into the land of words and leaving the scientist discussion into a more generic one....]

The pod mentions bench work a lot, as in "if you leave the bench". I have a little bit of an issue with equating scientist with "wet bench science work" and vice versa, I think this is very much a biomedical issue and that it has moved away from the old school interpretation of scientist as an researcher/inventor testings hypothesis[ideas] in a structured manner. It could be gathering samples from the outside, counting birds, running computer simulations, interviewing people, reading other people's papers and drawing up conclusions on your own and testing them, drawing equations to prove that prime is really random even when a number is 23 numbers long...  while these things can be used in science and in a scientific way, not everything related to the activities is scientific (imho). A lot of the "leaving bench work" comments end with the conclusion: "You are still a scientist even if you don't work as a researcher or in science anymore."

This ties quite nicely into the "doctor discussion"; that an MD is a physcian (and a doctor) while a doctor is people with a PhD/JD/MD and means the degree, rather than the more colloquial use of the word by society today... "You're always going to be a doctor, even if you don't work in science." I think this is the main point of degrees (and other types of Journeyman or Master craftsman in a guild after an apprenticeship getting a 'gesällbrev'). That "scientist" is somewhat of a journeyman?

The podcast ends with this conclusion "science has to be inclusive, and it's more than a title. even if you leave academia and the bench, you are still a scientist".

While I like this conclusion, there are a lot of things in there that are controversial. It links together with the everlasting conversation "who should be included in a paper" (also called "should a tech/post-doc be included just because they did some bench work?"). My issue is with "bench work", since it doesn't equate with "thinking up the experiments". It does mean "actually pipetting into the tubes". Does that pipetting though, make you a scientist? Or is it the "over all process" or the "training" that makes you a scientist?

While I would love to call myself a scientist regardless of my job - I do so now since I am involved with planning experimental set ups and interpreting data and drawing conclusions - I acknowledge that I want to call myself a scientist partly because I know it gives me a little touch of stardust and makes some of the people I meet look at me differently. The ego part of it shouldn't be neglected, nor should it be regarded as the main point of it.

I think my training as a scientist (my doctorate degree) gives it validity to keep calling myself a scientist long after I leave the actual "job in science with a title" - but I think it would be good to keep reminding ourselves that "there is a difference between a job and what we are and identify us as". It's also mentioned in the pod cast. That is something very much in the time we live in and something I anticipate we will continue to struggle with through the future.

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