4 ms·
> I'd probably feel blindsided if someone criticized my work in public w/o first talking to me about it. Why, though? If you present your work in front of audi
by xyzzyz 4y ago
> I'd probably feel blindsided if someone criticized my work in public w/o first talking to me about it.
Why, though? If you present your work in front of audience, it is extremely reasonable to expect the audience offer questions or criticism. If the mere fact of people criticizing your work after your presentation makes you feel blindsided, it’s simply a matter of adjusting expectations: you simply should expect criticism.
Then, if you expect criticism, but feel blindsided by the contents of the criticism, this means that you failed your job as a researcher. If someone can come up with a point after listening to your presentation for a few minutes, that you didn’t have thought of in advance and prepared answer for it, it means that you’re doing bad job, and should do better. You should actually thank the critic for bringing the issue to your attention, because in doing so, he helped you.
- jstarfish 4y ago> You should actually thank the critic for bringing the issue to your attention, because in doing so, he helped you. Heckling is not "helping." Nobody wants to be humiliated by public criticism they weren't prepared for, which may or may not itself be valid-- but a poor response from the presenter makes one look incompetent in front of their peers nonetheless. Callouts are sadistic and unprofessional. That anyone should thank someone for punching them in the face as criticism for not seeing it coming is ludicrous. It's bully logic.
- bondarchuk 4y agoYou very quickly went from "criticism" in the parent post to "heckling", "humiliated", "callouts", "sadistic", "punching them in the face", "bully". Criticism doesn't have to be any of those things.
- qubex 4y agoI’ll go further and say that criticism is _none_ of those things and that conflating is tantamount to scaremongering with a straw man. An academic must be prepared to defend his research. An academic must be willing to change their mind when information warrants it. A researcher must expect and even welcome queries, challenges, and deep questions. A member of the academic community must politely but rigorously criticise presented research or theories because science is based on cordial mutual doubt, that’s why we insist on independent replication and verification. Play fair but don’t be deferential. And don’t tarry every critic with the epithets of heckling. It’s called academic debate, without it you have progress, just polite mutually-reinforcing deference that advances human knowledge and technology one iota.
- xyzzyz 4y agoI agree with you completely. What makes me sad, however, is that you describe the ideal of academia I had in my mind when I was entering academia, which simply no longer exists, if it ever had. Academia is not focused on the pursuit of the truth anymore, and we get to watch its value and reputation decay and die in front of our eyes.
- kenjackson 4y agoTo be clear, I wasn’t talking about during a presentation. I was thinking after, for example on Twitter or in a magazine editorial. The one place I’d be more OK with it is in another paper. But even then if the criticism is rather scathing, I think there is a courtesy to them reaching out and saying — “we’re planning on showing how your method was wrong and your results misleading for this reason in our forthcoming paper”. Because once the argument goes public people tend to dig in their heels and true progress is not likely to be made.
- throwoutway 4y agoProgress is not made because one person was defensive about using the wrong method? Wouldn’t the other 99% just ignore the person who “digs in their heels”?
- kenjackson 4y agoThe other 99% probably can’t tell who is who. And now rather than the researchers working together, they’ve both dug in to a public dispute rather than doing science. It’s human nature.