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Thanks for sharing this. I've heard many stories like that of your uncle from professional researchers in science, economics, and other fields. This is somethin

Thanks for sharing this. I've heard many stories like that of your uncle from professional researchers in science, economics, and other fields. This is something that people who have no experience in professional academia and science often do not understand. In my experience a lot of people assume that because science and related disciplines are rational endeavors that the institutions and culture compassing them must also be rational, empirical, purely evidence-based, etc. Reality can be almost comically, and sometimes tragically, the opposite.

asdff 6y ago
It's like finance or law or any other field with some hothead cutthroat personalities in powerful positions. Where there is perceived power there is an attraction to people who feed off of power alone. Egos are a plenty and often cruel to others trying for the same goals. Lots of people are hypercompetitive rather than collaborative, and see any peer as an adversary or challenger rather than leaning into synergy. This kind of stuff would happen at conferences too, a couple notable cases of screaming matches from the audience to the presenter have happened. Sometimes vindictive professors will go to a rival professors's grad student's talk and just grill the poor kid, asking them impossible questions and being hypercritical. Usually the grad student's own professor has to step in and try to deflect the assholes line of questioning. Sometimes the professors are even in the same department. It's a total cringe moment for the rest of the audience, and is definitely a phenomenon that is slowly growing out of the field as professors retire. Take a look at the comment section of this blog to see it first hand: https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/how-not-to-perform-a-differential-expression-analysis-or-science/ https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/how-not-to-perf...

asdff 6y ago

It's like finance or law or any other field with some hothead cutthroat personalities in powerful positions. Where there is perceived power there is an attraction to people who feed off of power alone. Egos are a plenty and often cruel to others trying for the same goals. Lots of people are hypercompetitive rather than collaborative, and see any peer as an adversary or challenger rather than leaning into synergy. This kind of stuff would happen at conferences too, a couple notable cases of screaming matches from the audience to the presenter have happened. Sometimes vindictive professors will go to a rival professors's grad student's talk and just grill the poor kid, asking them impossible questions and being hypercritical. Usually the grad student's own professor has to step in and try to deflect the assholes line of questioning. Sometimes the professors are even in the same department. It's a total cringe moment for the rest of the audience, and is definitely a phenomenon that is slowly growing out of the field as professors retire. Take a look at the comment section of this blog to see it first hand: https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/how-not-to-perform-a-differential-expression-analysis-or-science/ https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/how-not-to-perf...