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My wife is currently a grad student at a top 10 chemistry university studying under a fairly well-known and respected female PhD (relevant because "respected fe
by yellowbkpk 16y ago
My wife is currently a grad student at a top 10 chemistry university studying under a fairly well-known and respected female PhD (relevant because "respected female chemistry PhD" is rare enough to really be "what's wrong with chemistry now"...not the subject of this article...). This PhD does an excellent job in motivating her students by pushing them for timely results, but I don't think anyone in the lab feels like they are expected to work evenings and weekends (indeed, some of them have brand new kids and a healthy work/life balance).
Of course, most weekends the lab has least a couple people in it, but I don't think it reflects the attitude presented in this memo. To be clearer, the motivation to come in on weekends and stay late are not coming from a harshly-worded memo, but from their desire to push their career forward.
The plural of anecdote is not data, but I thought I'd throw that perspective in.
- mcantor 16y agoThe plural of "anecdote" is not "data". That's brilliant. Can I steal that from you?
- Sukotto 16y agoAccording to this [1] you can steal it from Frank Kotsonis who in turn stole (and inverted) it from Raymond Wolfinger [1] http://askville.amazon.com/original-source-quote-plural-anecdote-data/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=1415780 http://askville.amazon.com/original-source-quote-plural-anec...
- mcantor 16y agoI love Hacker News.
- flatline 16y agoFascinating - according to that link, the Wolfinger quote stated the opposite, that the plural of anecdote _is_ data. I guess I could see it going either way depending on what you were arguing, which kind of makes the statement lose its punch.
- billswift 16y agoThat has been my point several times. Anecdotes are data, they just aren't very good quality data, but sometimes they are all that is really available. Their biggest problem are lack of controls, but then many statistical analyses lack controls; and lack of consistent baselines and alternatives between anecdotes.
- chc 16y agoIt's a common adage, so I doubt anyone would object.