4 ms·

When I was in grad school I was a TA for a biochemistry class and the prof asked me to deliver the lecture on crystallography while he was on vaca. Part of the

When I was in grad school I was a TA for a biochemistry class and the prof asked me to deliver the lecture on crystallography while he was on vaca. Part of the lecture was about how electron microscopy was easier but pretty inaccurate compared to x-ray crystallography. But the slides were 10 years out of date, the accuracy of EM was still not as good but the gap was much smaller. So I updated them with more recent EM results from the same labs. When the prof came back he spent the first 5m of the next lecture "correcting" me, explaining that EM sucked, x-ray was the only good technique. I realized that he had basically made up his mind decades earlier and no matter what changed in the technology he wasn't going to change his opinion. Science has its own politics, similar to actual politics in that conclusions drive observations, but instead of being about minimum wage or housing supply it's about arcane scientific techniques.

pierrefermat1 6y ago
Wondering if we should go with some straight name and shaming so as to any future students can avoid things like this, be a real waste of PhD students to follow him and go into areas without any prospects
throwaway67853 6y ago
This is quite typical in academia, especially in biology and medicine. I finished my PhD recently. Examiners asked me to rewrite some sections and resubmit my thesis because one of them didn't "believe" my results. Believing in this context actually meant I made lots of his stuff outdated / irrelevant using mathematical models instead of hand waving. Models led to precise findings, which had some lab validation by the time I submitted. At the same time my university, which is a really famous one, was encouraging me to patent my results. And my supervisor applied for massive funding as if all was his idea. 2 major clinical trials are now recruiting to test my findings. Least to say, I refused and got a new exam with some honest people.
natechols 6y ago
Academic scientists can be intensely conservative, even reactionary, when confronted with new ideas and methods. If you want to see something really horrific, try digging up some of the original debate on whether experimental data deposition should be mandatory for structural biology publications. Here is the one bit I know that's online still (PDF is free): https://www.nature.com/articles/nsb0698-407 https://www.nature.com/articles/nsb0698-407 The fact that there had to be a debate on this issue at all tells you everything. The forces of good triumphed in the end but it probably took a full generation for everyone to get in line. (I've heard legends of computer-vision software being written just to decode the figures in protein structure publications from competitors. Would love to know if this is actually true, but again, the fact that it even sounds plausible tells you a lot about the broken incentives.)
- zylent 6y ago
  This is true - I work in a related field.
intricatedetail 6y ago
This is a some sort of scream for money. These "scientists" do it on purpose in hope that one day a new tech company will pay them millions to change their mind. These "scientists" should be rooted out.
roughly 6y ago
"Science advances one funeral at a time" - Max Planck

pierrefermat1 6y ago

Wondering if we should go with some straight name and shaming so as to any future students can avoid things like this, be a real waste of PhD students to follow him and go into areas without any prospects

throwaway67853 6y ago

This is quite typical in academia, especially in biology and medicine. I finished my PhD recently. Examiners asked me to rewrite some sections and resubmit my thesis because one of them didn't "believe" my results. Believing in this context actually meant I made lots of his stuff outdated / irrelevant using mathematical models instead of hand waving. Models led to precise findings, which had some lab validation by the time I submitted. At the same time my university, which is a really famous one, was encouraging me to patent my results. And my supervisor applied for massive funding as if all was his idea. 2 major clinical trials are now recruiting to test my findings. Least to say, I refused and got a new exam with some honest people.

natechols 6y ago

Academic scientists can be intensely conservative, even reactionary, when confronted with new ideas and methods. If you want to see something really horrific, try digging up some of the original debate on whether experimental data deposition should be mandatory for structural biology publications. Here is the one bit I know that's online still (PDF is free): https://www.nature.com/articles/nsb0698-407 https://www.nature.com/articles/nsb0698-407 The fact that there had to be a debate on this issue at all tells you everything. The forces of good triumphed in the end but it probably took a full generation for everyone to get in line. (I've heard legends of computer-vision software being written just to decode the figures in protein structure publications from competitors. Would love to know if this is actually true, but again, the fact that it even sounds plausible tells you a lot about the broken incentives.)

zylent 6y ago
This is true - I work in a related field.

intricatedetail 6y ago

This is a some sort of scream for money. These "scientists" do it on purpose in hope that one day a new tech company will pay them millions to change their mind. These "scientists" should be rooted out.

roughly 6y ago

"Science advances one funeral at a time" - Max Planck