Heisenberg and Dirac in the age of NIH funding

The men who engineered the quantum revolution had some hard tasks cut out in front of them. But as the brilliant Philip Anderson says in his sparkling collection of essays "More and Different", at least they did not have to deal with the exigencies of NIH/NSF funding crunches, tenure pressures, media sensationalism, instant approbation or reprobation from social media, and the dog-eat-dog culture of peer review that has come to plague the upper echelons of science. Tis was a simpler time, and here's what would have happened to poor Werner and his fellow physicists had they tried to practice their trade today...it would be funny if it weren't painful.

"A Fred Sanger would not survive today's world of science."

Somehow I missed last year's obituary for double Nobel laureate and bench scientist extraordinaire Fred Sanger by Sydney Brenner in Science. The characteristically provocative Brenner has this to say about a (thankfully) fictional twenty-first century Sanger:

A Fred Sanger would not survive today's world of science. With continuous reporting and appraisals, some committee would note that he published little of import between insulin in 1952 and his first paper on RNA sequencing in 1967 with another long gap until DNA sequencing in 1977. He would be labeled as unproductive, and his modest personal support would be denied. We no longer have a culture that allows individuals to embark on long-term—and what would be considered today extremely risky—projects.

Depressing.

Pity the postdoc

PNAS has an interesting interview with well-known biochemist Greg Petsko about the plight of the postdoc. Postdocs are the main drivers of published academic research so it was a surprise to Petsko - and it's a sad surprise to me - to know how woefully uninformed many US academic institutions are about the numbers and kinds of postdocs they have. They are almost equally uninformed about where postdocs go after they do their time.

The problem, as Petsko describes, is that the many inequities in the system - a shrunk job market, limited funding, the propensity of PIs to squeeze as much as possible from postdocs - have led postdocs to sustain a generally uncertain and grief-filled existence, with tenures of five to eight years now being depressingly common. Petsko also talks about how so many graduate students do postdocs simply because it seems like the next thing to do and because it would seem to be mandatory for an academic career; what they don't know is that academic careers are very much the exceptions these days. As he says, it would really be helpful to expose both graduate students and postdocs to alternative careers.

PNAS: Part of the plight of US postdoctoral fellows, Petsko says, can be attributed to unrealistic expectations and perverse incentives in the scientific job market.

Petsko: When I look around at my own university and the universities I visit, I see lots of postdocs; I see older postdocs than I used to see when I was younger. I see people doing postdocs for what seem to me to be considerably longer periods than they used to when I was younger, and I see them in many cases doing multiple postdocs, what I would call serial postdocs, if you will. And, I asked myself what drives these trends, and I think they’re driven by a number of things. One is that the bar has been raised, maybe unrealistically, for people to get from a postdoctoral position to an academic position in terms of the amount of work they are expected to accomplish, the number of papers that people seem to expect them to have published, and the degree of training they seem to have to have. I think the bar has been further raised for young principal investigators, young faculty in universities in terms of the amount of work they have to do to get a grant, to get a grant renewed, to publish papers in leading journals, and so forth. The net result of those perverse incentives is that people stay in postdocs longer because it takes more time to try to climb over this very high bar, and they tend to have multiple postdocs because they think they need lots of time and lots of experience to accumulate a vast CV before going out and applying for the limited number of jobs that are out there.

PNAS: With the changing economic climate that has increasingly affected scientific institutions, the notion of an “alternative career” in science might itself need revisiting, says Petsko.

Petsko: They go into a postdoctoral position almost by default because they think it’s what you are supposed to do, and in many cases they’re unaware that fewer than a third of them will ever do academic science. That, in fact, people like me are now the alternative career, and that not being an academic is by far the majority outcome for postdocs. And if they knew that, they might make different decisions about whether to do a postdoc, or what kind to do, or how long to do it for, and if they understood also what their realistic career options are, they might also choose to try to acquire more information about some of those options, which in many cases we don’t provide for them. If I think about what would benefit my own postdocs, boy, I think it would be great if they had some internships that they could try out some of these careers, if we could provide those for them. Certainly exposure to people with different careers, bringing them into a university, have them sit down and talk to postdocs about what it’s like to be a patent lawyer, a science writer, a policy wonk in Washington, all kinds of things like that. 

How (not) to get tenure

Over at the blog Cosmic Variance, there are two (1, 2) excellent and informative posts on how to get tenure and how to kill your chances of getting it. While the tips and caveats apply mainly to physics positions (and primarily for large, research-focused universities), most of the points will be valid for chemistry positions too. Two especially stood out for me:

1. You may think diversity in research counts, but it does not, at least not for tenure: This is the age of interdisciplinary research where an ability to transcend boundaries is key to solving important scientific problems. Thus you may think that a track record of having worked on diverse projects may help. Apparently not for tenure; tenure committees still seem to be more impressed with hedgehogs rather than foxes. They don't want a "dabbler"; they want someone who has proven his or her expertise in a single, narrowly defined area of research. Personally I find this approach disappointing, not only because thinkers working on diverse projects can enrich a department but because scientific progress itself needs all kinds of tinkerers, from the ones obsessed with a single problem for fifteen years to ones having their fingers in several scientific pies. Sure, being able to probe to the core of your chosen speciality is important and in fact is indicative of sustained scholarship, but the capacity to think outside the box and apply your knowledge to a variety of problems is increasingly important. The way I see it, tenure committees seem to be stuck in the transition period between the age of specialization and that of diversity. In twenty years perhaps they will start to appreciate diversity more, but for now, the lesson seems to be that narrow specialization is much more important, at least for getting tenure. Once you get tenure of course you can break free of such constraints.

2. Interests outside actual research don't count, and paradoxically, interests related to research may harm your prospects: This point was even more revealing. Yes, you can have hobbies (thank you!), but the more unrelated a hobby is to your research, the more benign it will seem to the tenure committee. The good news is that cooking and horse-riding are good. The bad news is that blogging and textbook writing are bad. If you are blogging in an area related to your work, there is a much greater chance for the committee to think that you are wasting your time which could be more fruitfully spent in actual research. Similarly, textbook writing will be frowned upon, even if you write a best-selling textbook. Basically any time away from research by definition is time that can be spent on research, and that's how tenure committees think. This is not too different from the attitude that certain PhD advisors have toward their unfortunate graduate students, but that's how it is.

However, there are probably ways in which you can try to put a positive spin on your blogging and other activities in a way that makes the committee appreciate your efforts in these areas. Recently I attended ScienceOnline2011 and there was a session in which tenured professors who thought that their blogging actually helped their tenure process gave some valuable advice on pitching blogs in tenure applications. First of all, try to convince the committee that blogging is not just a pastime but a valuable way to communicate science. Thus, you could possibly make a good case that skills gained from such communication could and do help you in the classroom. Secondly, try to convey the impact of your blogging on department visibility by citing references to your blogs in the media and in scientific journals. International citations could especially help. Ultimately, however, I don't think any of these strategies would work in the majority of cases since again, none of these activities contribute to actual research as much as they do to teaching and outreach, aspects of science that are usually considered less important by tenure committees.

Are you depressed yet? Well, all this is probably not as unfair as it sounds. Think a little from the perspective of the tenure committee. They are going to run the risk of hiring someone who will hang around for thirty or more years and become a permanent department fixture. Thus they want to be absolutely sure that they hire someone who has demonstrated scholarship (and funding potential). The fact is that if you can prove your mastery in one speciality, the committee can be more confident of your potential in tackling other complex problems. They want someone who can do sustained work in a single area for half a dozen years and bring in the bacon.

At the same time, tenure committees need to awaken to the new reality where an ability to appreciate and work in diverse disciplines is as important as the ability to delve deep in one specialty. As for blogs and textbook writing, while I find the attitude disappointing, it again makes sense. Departments hire you first and foremost for your research and publishing potential. They may treat your blogging and other related activities with mild interest at best but one cannot blame them, at least in the first few years, for relegating such activities to the side when it comes to considering you for tenure.

It is also worth noting that the caveats listed above mostly apply to research-oriented universities. Blogging, textbook writing and diversity may all be appreciated more in institutions equally or more focused on teaching. But there it is; a picture that's disappointing but sensible in its own way. Say goodbye to your utopian childhood impression of science as a career in which you are free to pursue any line of activity and work in any area that interests you. At least until you get tenure, you will have to stick to a narrowly defined set of constraints and toe the line.

After that the world's your oyster. Almost.

The road not taken: Do you have the courage to let go?

Science writer Kathy Weston has a sobering and instructive assessment of her life as an academic scientist and as a woman in science on the Science website. Weston quit academic research after twenty years of a promising career. Why?

Her pedigree was outstanding. She got her PhD. at the Medical Research Council in the UK which has been a Nobel laureate-generating factory. She then post-docked with Michael Bishop at UCSF just as Bishop was finishing his Nobel Prize-winning work on oncogenes. After her postdoc Weston got a nice tenure-track position in a leading British university and immersed herself in exciting research. She even got tenure and life looked rosy. But as she says, at some point she started losing motivation after realizing that perhaps she did not have what it takes to get on the path to Stockholm.

"However, I was always hampered by self-doubt. My initial conviction -- essential for anyone who wants to make it as a scientist -- that I could really make a difference, maybe even win a few prizes and get famous, eroded when I realized that my brain was simply not wired like those of the phalanx of Nobelists I met over the years; I was never going to be original enough to be a star. This early realization, combined with a deep-seated lack of self-confidence, meant that I was useless at self-promotion and networking. I would go to conferences and hide in corners, never daring to talk to the speakers and the big shots. I never managed, as an infinitely more successful friend put it, "to piss in all the right places."

Plus as she says, academic life is not as tempting as it sounds since the freedom to work "whenever you want" usually translates to working "all the time". Being a woman made it even harder for her to sustain her interest and drive even as she raised two children in her thirties. At one point she realized that this was not the best way to live her life, and she quit.

Weston's frank and sobering memoir raises a lot of questions. Some of the reasons she failed as an academic scientist can be traced to her own admission that she lacked drive. But one cannot blame her completely. I am pretty sure most of us have the same experience. When we are eager kids interested in science, the horizon glows with possibilities. But as we progress in our scientific careers, the self-doubt that Weston mentions inevitably creeps in. At some point we downgrade our expectations from winning a Nobel to simply doing good research. Further down the line we realize that even getting a top position may be too ambitious and settle for a permanent position in some university. In the extreme case, we may quit science altogether and settle for another profession.

There are two thoughts I have about this. The first thought is that settling for another profession is not a bad thing. One of the fundamental hypotheses I have about life and careers is that many of us don't actually end up professionally doing what we have the greatest aptitude for. Most of us realize much later in life that we are not really cut out for what we have been doing for the past twenty years. The real tragedy is that at that point, pride, financial and personal issues, an unwillingness to let go of our childhood dreams and simple inertia keep us from severing the knot and moving on to a different career. We remain entrenched in our mundane existence and at the age of eighty wistfully wish that life had been different. I have at least a couple of friends who are working 9-5 jobs which do not excite them and whose real passions include writing, music and art. Yet they don't have the heart to let go. Weston must be congratulated for having the courage to admit her shortcomings, taking that very important and drastic step of switching careers and moving on to become a science writer. As she mentions, she sometimes still misses life in the lab, but it's clear that the rational part of her mind assures her that she made the right decision.

The other thought concerns the importance of cultivating people skills which Weston admits she failed to appreciate. Love it or hate it, networking and people skills have become as essential a part of scientific research as the research itself. As Weston says, you need to have the initiative to speak up and interact with people, whether your work is Nobel-caliber or entirely pedestrian. Having an inferiority complex does not help (maybe that's why many academic scientists overcompensate and develop egos as big as planets...). You need to acquire a traveling salesman's skills to pitch guano as if it were gold. As Weston says, it is also very important to find a mentor who will not only inspire and encourage you but serve as a practical conduit to positions, recommendations and funding. Again, these kinds of mentors can only be cultivated through constant networking. The other problem is of course being a woman and balancing a family life with research. That continues to be a real challenge for women in academia, and only a deep overhaul of the system can address this problem.

But it's not just young scientists. As Weston indicates, the system doesn't do too much to encourage people like her to stay on board.

"And what of the system? It failed too, I think. Scientists are judged almost entirely on research output, measured by papers published in the most prominent journals, and grants are not awarded unless your work is competitive at the highest level. Trying to run a lab full time with small children at home is very likely to result in a drop in research productivity or quality, and yet little allowance is made for those of us, mostly women, who find ourselves in this situation"

She is absolutely right. Academic research in the last few decades has gradually become more and more restrictive in many ways, rewarding only those who kowtow to its narrowly defined set of values and constraints. The latest salvo in the struggle has been the dubious decision by certain universities to assess professors' worth primarily based on the amount of money that they bring in, rather than by focusing on other valuable activities like teaching. Nor has it become any easier to bring home the bacon. In several cases the NIH has ended up setting unrealistic standards for awarding funds: on one hand your research needs to be novel enough to be distinguished from everyone else's and on the other hand it needs to rest on tried and tested recipes to stand a chance of becoming successful. In addition the noose has been constantly tightened by an increasingly smaller piece of the pie. This kind of system may reward people at the highest level but it weeds out so many at a slightly lower one whose work is collectively as or more important.

Ultimately we can defend all of this by saying that you should pursue a career in scientific research only if you are deeply interested in the process of science itself; any other expectation and you are in the wrong field. There is more than a shred of truth in this. If it is the ultimate search for truth that drives you, then you would indeed be less enamored of awards and publications or even novel discoveries and would be propelled onwards by the sheer joy of discovery rather than its fruits. It shouldn't be Stockholm as much as Satisfaction that should be your goal. Sadly, we and especially others do not live in this perfect world. Scientists crave results and benefits as much as anyone else, and the world beats a path to your door only if you are loudest in convincing it of the importance of your work. We are only human, and maybe that is our flaw. Perhaps Weston's wisdom was in realizing this early enough.

In praise of cheap science

The era of ‘big science’ in the United States began in the 1930s. Nobody exemplified this spirit more than Ernest Lawrence at the University of California, Berkeley whose cyclotrons smashed subatomic particles together to reveal nature’s deepest secrets. Lawrence was one of the first true scientist-entrepreneurs. He paid his way through college selling all kinds of things as a door-to-door salesman. He brought the same persuasive power a decade later to sell his ideas about particle accelerators to wealthy businessmen and philanthropists. Sparks flying off his big machines, his ‘boys’ frantically running around to fix miscellaneous leaks and shorts, Lawrence would proudly display his Nobel Prize winning invention to millionaires as if it were his own child. The philanthropists’ funding paid off in at least one practical respect; it was Lawrence’s modified cyclotrons that produced the uranium used in the Hiroshima bomb.

After the war big science was propelled to even greater heights. With ever bigger particle accelerators needed to explore ever smaller particles, science became an expensive ‘hobby’. The decades through the 70s were dominated by high-energy physics that needed billion-dollar accelerators to verify its predictions. Fermilab, Brookhaven and of course, CERN, all became household names. Researchers competed for the golden apples that would sustain these behemoths. But one of the rather unfortunate fallouts of these developments was that good science started to be defined by the amount of money it needed. Gone were the days when a Davy or a Cavendish could make profound discoveries using tabletop apparatus. The era of molecular biology and the billion dollar Human Genome Project further cemented this faith in the fruits of expensive research.

We are now seeing the culmination of this era of big physics and biology. In recent years, university professors’ worth has exceedingly been measured by the amount of funding that they get. Science, long a relentless search to uncover the mysteries of life and the universe, has been transformed into a relentless search to find the perfect problem most likely to bag the biggest grant. Rather than focusing on the ideas themselves, the current system encourages researchers on proving their ‘worth’. The only true worth of a scientist is his quest and hunger for knowledge and his passion in transferring that knowledge to the next generation. All other metrics of worth are greatly exaggerated.

The accomplished chemist Alan Bard nails this problem in a C & EN editorial that castigates the current system for sacrificing the actual quality of research at the altar of the ability to bring in research funds. The editorial succinctly points out that in the race to secure these funds, scientists are often tempted to hype their research proposals so that the end product is more smoke and less fire. And of course, the biggest casualty is the education of further generations of scientists, those who are going to bring about the very technological and scientific advances that make our world tick. The result of all this? Young people are dissuaded from going into academic science; if their worth is going to be mainly judged in dollars (and that too only after they turn 40), they might as well work for the private sector.

Now of course nobody is arguing against scientists being able to file patents or apply for large grants. Money flowing in from these endpoints can sustain further research which today on the whole is more expensive. But as Bard’s article makes it clear, these activities are often becoming the primary and not the secondary focus of universities. That goes against the spirit of research and it undermines the very meaning of intellectual scholarship.

But most importantly, and Bard does not explicitly mention this, I think that the current environment makes it appear to young scientists just entering the game that they need to necessarily do expensive science in order to be successful. I think part of this belief does come from the era of big accelerator physics and high profile molecular biology. But this belief is flawed and it has been demolished by physicists themselves; this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to scientists who produced graphene by peeling off layers of it from graphite using good old scotch tape. How many millions of dollars did it take to do this experiment?

Sure, low hanging scientific fruits accessible through simple experiments have largely been picked, but such a perspective is also in the eye of the beholder. As the graphene scientists proved, there are still fledgling fields like materials science where simple and ingenious experiments can contribute to profound discoveries. Another field where such experiments can provide handsome dividends is the other fledgling field of neuroscience. Cheap research that provides important insights in this area is exemplified by the neurologist V S Ramachandran, who has performed the simplest and ingenious experiments on patients using mirrors and other elementary equipment to unearth key insights into the functioning of the brain. These scientists have shown that if you find the right field, you can find the right simple experiment.

Ultimately, few can doubt that cheap experiments are also more elegant, and one derives much more satisfaction from simply mixing two chemicals together to generate complex self-assembled structures than using the latest accelerator to analyze gigabytes of computer data, although the latter may also lead to exciting discoveries. The beauty of science still lies in its simplicity.

But as Bard’s article suggests, are university administrations going to come around to this point of view? Are they going to recruit a young researcher describing an ingenious tabletop experiment worth five thousand dollars or are they going to go for one who is going to pitch for a hundred thousand dollars worth of fancy equipment? Sadly, the current answer seems to be that they would rather prefer the latter.

This has got to change, not only because simple experiments still hold the potential to provide unprecedented insights in the right fields, but also because the undue association of science with money misleads young researchers into thinking that more expensive is better. It threatens to undermine everything that science has stood for since The Enlightenment. The function of academic scientists is to do high-quality research and mentor the next generation of scientist-citizens. Raising money comes second. A scientist who spends most of his time securing funds is no different from a corporate lackey soliciting capital.

Science, which has nurtured and sustained our intellectual growth and contributed to our well-being for four hundred years, is like an eagle held aloft by the wind of creativity and skepticism. How can this magnificent bird soar if the wind fueling its flight and holding it high starts getting charged by the cubic centimeter?