NEQNET: Non-equilibrium Phenomena » Careers in science

How to use technology to teach undegraduate biology

Dmitry — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:30:24 +0000

Explanations by Stony Brook U. professor William Collins: it was fun to watch for me.

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How to use technology to teach undegraduate biology

Harvard near bankruptcy

Dmitry — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:38:37 +0000

Just wanted to finally end my day and go to sleep (way too much work today), but heard some news and cannot help sharing it with you.

According to Boston Magazine Harvard University is to face some very serious problems. The University currently spends about 1.5 billion USD/year, it has lost several billion during crisis – including 500 million thanks to Larry Summers, super feminist fighter (essentially, he presented those 500 million as a gift for GS). If only Dr. Summers spent more time thinking about what he was supposed to think about… but he is clearly not the person to blame as they want him to be.

11 billion of Harvard’s money are currently to be repaid to private investors as capital commitments in the next 10 years, Harvard currently has 13 billion in various assets – and what if the crisis did not reach its bottom yet? What if Harvard is to expect more endowment losses? And all this does not include construction of the new campus in Allston which will be surely put on hold.

Sad, saaad news.

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Harvard near bankruptcy

How many scientists fabricate or falsify their research?

Dmitry — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:05:05 +0000

This is the title of a rather intriguing paper recently published in PLos ONE. As it turns out, approximately 72% of researchers have seen at least once how their colleagues used inappropriate or incorrect methods of research.

The study by Dr. Fanelli contains analysis of 28 polls offered for answer to actively working scientists. Among different questions in each poll there were questions like “Did you falsify data in your study at least once?” and “Did you ever notice that your colleagues falsify data of their study or use other questionable practices?”. As a result, about 1.75% of all people entered the poll falsified data in their own work and about 30% used other questionable practices. (Hmm, I wonder what do they mean by questionable practices, teach me one, pleeease, science is so competitive field.)

These numbers differed strongly if the questions were not related with a person who was asked the question, but with his/her colleagues instead. As it turns out, 14% have noticed that their colleagues falsify data in their research and about 72% testified use of other questionable practices in the work of their colleagues (hehe, not surprising at all, is it? Gealous bastards ).

According to the study, results don’t depend much on country where the poll was conducted, but do depend on the field of research – for example, inappropriate methods and questionable practices are more often used in medicine and pharmacology. Fanelli concludes that scientists who work in medicine and pharmacology are generally more honest than, say, physicists Yes, sure, Dr. Fanelli, and sociologists are even more honest than pharmacologists.

A somewhat similar study was conducted by Washington Post in 2005: people who recently received grants from NIH (National Institutes of Health) were offered to fill a questionnaire. According to the published results of the study, 5% considered possible to neglect facts in the study, 10% were included into a list of authors of a paper they did not contribute to in any way (well, this sounds familiar), 16% changed the results of their study so that they look like more favorable from the point of view of a sponsor of the study. It feels so good that we don’t have many sponsors in theoretical physics…

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How many scientists fabricate or falsify their research?

349. The question of quality

Dmitry — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 09:03:05 +0000

Last time we had a nice, surprisingly long discussion trying to answer the question how much should you publish in order to be considered a successful postdoc From Michal’s point of view, this is not quantity but quality of your publications that should matter.

Actually, I completely agree with this point of view – that’s how it should work in the idealized world. However, the quantity of papers that you publish per year still matters. Imagine that people from hiring committee in the place where you are applying to are not quite familiar with your work, while the average number of citations per paper of yours is about 10 (typical situation for a good fresh graduate student, isn’t it?). There are hundreds of applications similar to yours that they go through. In practice, it means that in the first round hiring committee will probably choose people with longer list of publications. Or, what is more probable, they will choose people with larger overall number of citations, presumably a good measure of quality of your work.

I wouldn’t be I if I wouldn’t try to quantify the problem – quantify the quality of our work So, the first question I would like to ask is as follows: how good is the total number of citations as a metrics of the quality of your work? If not, is it possible that some other metrics work better? For example, I’ve heard that it is virtually impossible to get permanent position if your h-factor is below 10 Is h-factor is good enough to quantify the quality of your work?

Bonus video: Worst jobs in science 2007, ABC News version.

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349. The question of quality

334. How much should you publish?

Dmitry — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:56:16 +0000

As far as I remember, it was believed that one has to publish about 2-3 papers/year during glorious and relaxing PhD years (i.e., about 1 paper per 4-6 months, not a too heavy burden indeed)… This would give necessary 6 publications in the end of the term (in Russia, getting your PhD takes 3 years) for your thesis to be officially considered worth defending. If you were publishing less than 2 papers/year, you were assigned a mark “loser”, which is, I guess, quite reasonable Being loser meant that you had to spend another year preparing your thesis, then – another one, until the overall number of your publications would hit the magical number 6. Believe it or not, I happen to know (many) very smart people belonging to this category.

Now, the first question is – how many published papers are you supposed to have in the end of your first postdoctoral position term in order for your career to be considered successful? Does the vacuum expectation value of the number of published papers differ for different institutions and countries? What are your thoughts, what is your personal standard of scientist’s productivity?

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334. How much should you publish?