3 ms·

God. Thank you for this. As an incipient biomedical researcher with still 2 years to finish training, I feel like every time I google or pubmed my subject matte

by sam537 5y ago

God. Thank you for this. As an incipient biomedical researcher with still 2 years to finish training, I feel like every time I google or pubmed my subject matter of interest I'm being scooped. Just yesterday I was quite mad as a company looking to solve the problem I am working on opened with a bunch of researchers from other institutions. I felt like I was late once again. The final paragraphs make me think of David Epstein's Range, and how training or even basic understanding of methodologies outside one's area open conceptual frames to better tackle questions.

bglazer 5y ago
I occasionally have the same feelings. Like it seems like people have basically figured out everything in biology. Most papers are written with that kind of authoritative tone, which is understandable given the pressure of the publishing process. So occasionally I have to remind myself that 600k people a year die from cancer, which is what I’m studying. It’s quite dark but it’s also the truth. We have absolutely no idea how biology works. There is so much left to understand. Also if you feel like you’re being scooped by already published papers, that is good. You’re having the same ideas that researchers had just a few years before. You’ll find the gaps eventually.
- amelius 5y ago
  > You’ll find the gaps eventually. There will be fewer gaps, and they will be smaller, thus harder to find.
- dekhn 5y ago
  The funny thing is, for my entire (scientific) career, I never felt like anybody was scooping me. Instead, I felt like I was waiting for the rest of the literature to catch up with where I was mentally, years before. Many of the things that I worked on as an undergraduate sort of... didn't go anywhere for 20-30 years until neural nets became awesome again.

3 ms·

God. Thank you for this. As an incipient biomedical researcher with still 2 years to finish training, I feel like every time I google or pubmed my subject matte

by sam537 5y ago

bglazer 5y ago
I occasionally have the same feelings. Like it seems like people have basically figured out everything in biology. Most papers are written with that kind of authoritative tone, which is understandable given the pressure of the publishing process. So occasionally I have to remind myself that 600k people a year die from cancer, which is what I’m studying. It’s quite dark but it’s also the truth. We have absolutely no idea how biology works. There is so much left to understand. Also if you feel like you’re being scooped by already published papers, that is good. You’re having the same ideas that researchers had just a few years before. You’ll find the gaps eventually.
- amelius 5y ago
  > You’ll find the gaps eventually. There will be fewer gaps, and they will be smaller, thus harder to find.
- dekhn 5y ago
  The funny thing is, for my entire (scientific) career, I never felt like anybody was scooping me. Instead, I felt like I was waiting for the rest of the literature to catch up with where I was mentally, years before. Many of the things that I worked on as an undergraduate sort of... didn't go anywhere for 20-30 years until neural nets became awesome again.