Lee Turnpenny
University of Southampton, UK
A stem-cell researcher considers an accusation of dullness.
How might hard-working scientists react to an accusation that 'modern scientists' are 'dull', as is provocatively postulated in a March editorial of the non-peer-reviewed journal Medical Hypotheses (B. Charlton Med. Hypotheses 72, 237–243; 2009). With offence? Humour? Ambivalence? Or, perhaps, in response to a jeremiad bemoaning our apparent insufficient intelligence and creativity, we might retort, "So what? Tell us something we don't know."
Because, it seems to me, most working scientists have either long since accepted that they are not of the 'revolutionary' type exemplified by greats such as Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, or never strived to be. Gaining and retaining employment in academia is hard enough. Yes, we are of the persevering and conscientious 'normal' type — if we weren't, nothing would get done.
We know there is too much bureaucracy. And yes, there is a lot of repetitive, boring, tiresome, problematic work to be done that is unlikely to shift any paradigms (yet), but important nonetheless. Whether or not somehow creating more windows of opportunity for would-be geniuses possessed of the requisite levels of selfishness and creativity would lead to significant changes in direction is debatable. But the drudge is always necessary in a multidisciplinary collaborative enterprise.
It's not that scientists are dull per se. Rather, instead of being the 'clever crazy' type that might belong in an institution, we labour in an institutionalized occupation that demands we play by certain rules. We know we're not going to change the world, but we like to think we can contribute to the sum of knowledge. Providing we can first convince our peers. If it was easy, everybody would do it. One might add, complaining that modern science can be dull, although valid, isn't exactly a 'revolutionary' idea. Tell us something original, eh?
Comments
I have to take issue with several aspects of this article: the representation of "revolutionary type" minds, the suggested dichotomy of scientific personalities, and the implied acceptance of "dull" as a label.
First I would like to pick on Charles Darwin, since it is so close to his anniversary, although the accomplishments of Newton and Einstein were not without context (or occasional intellectual thievery), either. We should note that Darwin's contribution to biology did not stand alone, but was rather the culmination of several generations' work in his own family combined with contemporary ideas in geology and a fantastic amount of publicity. Darwin himself barely considered the import of his biological observations, and initially looked on them as dry routine fieldwork. For him, rocks were the fascinating part of the day, not mockingbirds. In that respect, his work was not so different in nature to this article's description of most modern scientists. (I admit, though, that Thomas Henry Huxley's bombastic version of events has always been more exciting.)
In part for the reasons noted above, it would be a mistake to divide scientists into the geniuses and the peons. Our fields are like most others in that there is always a mix of personalities, intelligence, luck, and motivation. Yes, there is more cooperation now, and more huge successes are attributed to teams rather than individuals. The paradigm of research and advancement is changing as we move beyond determining the basic set of principles to the compound implications and, from there, novel applications. Each discovery is still incredibly important, but now we make them more quickly and, for the first time in history, there is a world full of intelligent colleagues with whom we can discuss and amend our findings. I take that as a good thing. Perhaps the greatest paradigm shift of our time is not a single idea, but lies instead in our approach towards acquiring, distributing, and advancing knowledge.
This speaks against labeling ourselves as dull, and the activity in our fields reflects this. To the best of my knowledge, science has never made such exciting strides so rapidly as it is doing now, and there has never been such an array of truly brilliant minds working on subjects from engineering to stem cell biology to particle physics. Although all scientists may not enjoy the subject of their research, in my experience it is a passion for the material and for exploration that drives inquiry, and that has always allowed me to approach routine and repetition in my work with good humor. That this does not require a thirst for immediate individual notoriety does not, I think, make us boring, but rather more interesting than someone who values fame over curiosity, or who approaches fame as a measure of worth.
Posted by: R.A. Howe | May 18, 2009 11:55 PM
Having had cause to come back to this today, I'm surprised to see a comment dated just three days after the original posting, as I'd kept my eyes on it for several weeks and found none.
Anyway, word limit precluded publication of the 'full' version, which can be found at:
http://network.nature.com/people/U71147CBA/blog/2009/04/13/dull:
Posted by: Lee Turnpenny | November 9, 2009 12:53 PM