If you've been browsing the new, redesigned, fancy-pants ScienceBlogs front page lately, you may have noticed the announcement for The Rightful Place Project. In his inaugural address, President Obama vowed to restore "science to its rightful place." In response, The Seed Media Group, through SeedMagazine and ScienceBlogs, are looking to begin a dialog about how to do this by asking for responses to the following question:
What is science's rightful place?
Earlier in the week, Dr. Isis and the rest of the Sciencebloggers received an email from the highest of high overlordz telling us inviting us to answer the question.
So last night Dr. Isis drew a bath, poured some wine, put on a little Aretha, and slipped under the bubbles to think about her answer to the question. She left the lid of her laptop open so that she could look at The Rightful Place Project's site while she carefully crafted what would surely be a witty and thoughtful response. Sixty minutes later I realized that I had nothing but pruny fingers and "Ain't No Way" stuck in my head to show for my efforts.
Figure 1: The only result of Dr. Isis's thinking bath. Sorry it didn't turn out better, President Obama. I really am.
So, I hopped out of the bath, dried myself off, made some tea, and kept staring at the site, hoping for a little inspiration. I realized after a bit that the reason I was having a hard time was that I was so distracted by the site's graphic. Here it is below:
So, I hopped out of the bath, dried myself off, made some tea, and kept staring at the site, hoping for a little inspiration. I realized after a bit that the reason I was having a hard time was that I was so distracted by the site's graphic. Here it is below:
Figure 2: The Rightful Place Project
I realized that what I was so hung up on was the statement "Reviving Science in America." I kept asking again and again, "What does this even mean? Reviving science?" I ran downstairs to my office, tripping over the dog in the process, and pulled my Random House dictionary off the shelf to look up "revive" and see exactly what we were needing to do to science. Here are the first entries in the definition of "revive," when used with an object:
I am not sure that science is not adequately being shown or is not noticed. I think about the non-scientist readers of my blog that are interested in the life of this totally hot laboratory diva (the readers who are interested in the people that are spending their tax dollars on research) and the folks who regularly read Ed Yong and Rebecca Skloot for more frequent science content, and I know that the public is interested in scientific advances. Science is quite visible -- more than it has ever been and the public has more access to investigators than at any point in the past. I think about the frequent discussion of green energy and therapeutic interventions, and I know that the public wants these things to become a reality -- science is currently tremendously valid and I think many are confident in the ability of science to solve our current crises.
I continued to read down the page and found that the last definition intrigued me:
10. To recover from financial depression.
And if this is what was meant by the folks at Seed Media when they created the image, then they've already answered their question and I can get back to browsing pictures of shoes online. The problem with science is not the enthusiasm of the scientists or the public, or the innovativeness of the questions being asked, it the resources that are available to those that are asking the questions.
I believe that many young scientists are afraid of a career in academia -- not because they don't believe themselves capable of managing the research, but because they are afraid of running in the funding race. And they should be afraid. Many students are watching previously-funded PIs scramble for funding or lose it completely. Some students are worried about where their next paycheck will come from. Major research universities are postponing faculty searches. Of those I attended grad school with, only two of us are pursuing an academic career. Students are leaving academia because they are afraid of funding, and they should be. I have no doubt that the drop in the NIH payline has cause some talented people to drop out of academic science.
Some of the faculty that are affiliated with major research universities are leaving. A scientist that I have been acquainted with for years, a brilliant scientist with multiple papers in high impact journals, recently moved his lab to Singapore. And he's not the only one. People that choose to remain in academia are changing the way they do business -- I think, in general, people are more cautious about asking ambitious questions. Unfortunately, it's often the riskiest experiments that yield the most provocative data.
So, how do we return science to its "rightful place?" Break us off a little scratch, Mr. President. Science has been been here for these last 8 years, living off rice and beans, selling plasma to try to pay the rent, ready to take off when the money starts flowing again. Science is ready when you are.
Now, you show me $250,000/year for five years and I will show you something amazing.
I realized that what I was so hung up on was the statement "Reviving Science in America." I kept asking again and again, "What does this even mean? Reviving science?" I ran downstairs to my office, tripping over the dog in the process, and pulled my Random House dictionary off the shelf to look up "revive" and see exactly what we were needing to do to science. Here are the first entries in the definition of "revive," when used with an object:
- To activate, set in motion, or take up again; renew: to revive old feuds.
- To restore to life or consciousness: We revived him with artificial respiration.
- To put on or show (an old play or motion picture).
- To bring back into notice, use, or currency: to revive a subject of discussion.
- To make operative or valid again.
- To reanimate (the spirit, heart, or a person)
I am not sure that science is not adequately being shown or is not noticed. I think about the non-scientist readers of my blog that are interested in the life of this totally hot laboratory diva (the readers who are interested in the people that are spending their tax dollars on research) and the folks who regularly read Ed Yong and Rebecca Skloot for more frequent science content, and I know that the public is interested in scientific advances. Science is quite visible -- more than it has ever been and the public has more access to investigators than at any point in the past. I think about the frequent discussion of green energy and therapeutic interventions, and I know that the public wants these things to become a reality -- science is currently tremendously valid and I think many are confident in the ability of science to solve our current crises.
I continued to read down the page and found that the last definition intrigued me:
10. To recover from financial depression.
And if this is what was meant by the folks at Seed Media when they created the image, then they've already answered their question and I can get back to browsing pictures of shoes online. The problem with science is not the enthusiasm of the scientists or the public, or the innovativeness of the questions being asked, it the resources that are available to those that are asking the questions.
I believe that many young scientists are afraid of a career in academia -- not because they don't believe themselves capable of managing the research, but because they are afraid of running in the funding race. And they should be afraid. Many students are watching previously-funded PIs scramble for funding or lose it completely. Some students are worried about where their next paycheck will come from. Major research universities are postponing faculty searches. Of those I attended grad school with, only two of us are pursuing an academic career. Students are leaving academia because they are afraid of funding, and they should be. I have no doubt that the drop in the NIH payline has cause some talented people to drop out of academic science.
Some of the faculty that are affiliated with major research universities are leaving. A scientist that I have been acquainted with for years, a brilliant scientist with multiple papers in high impact journals, recently moved his lab to Singapore. And he's not the only one. People that choose to remain in academia are changing the way they do business -- I think, in general, people are more cautious about asking ambitious questions. Unfortunately, it's often the riskiest experiments that yield the most provocative data.
So, how do we return science to its "rightful place?" Break us off a little scratch, Mr. President. Science has been been here for these last 8 years, living off rice and beans, selling plasma to try to pay the rent, ready to take off when the money starts flowing again. Science is ready when you are.
Now, you show me $250,000/year for five years and I will show you something amazing.
Politics
Comments
Yeah, I think they are making a leeeetle too much of something that was such an obvious slap at the prior anti-science administration.
Posted by: DrugMonkey | January 27, 2009 9:20 PM
Yeah, I'm not gonna lie Brother Drug. This really didn't seem like that hard of a question. This doesn't require a huge think tank. It requires a little more cash.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | January 27, 2009 9:45 PM
PR is a problem. As a completely non-science type person until an accident sent me to the local med school library 30 years ago, I am as annoyed with the breathless accountings of "discoveries" in the non-science media as I am with the morons who ask, "We can send a man to the moon but we can't cure cancer?"
Not everybody is a Rebecca Skloot.
I would wish for a special seminar for members of Congress on The Scientific Method. Along with Balancing A Checkbook and Budgeting 101.
I'm in complete agreement that science needs to be funded more better, but I worry that "popular" science gets more than it deserves over the less glamourous, but very very necessary stuff. We're human, so I suppose that wishing politics would bow out of science is wishing for the impossible, but, gee! Wouldn't it be nice?
That's about as likely as my aging abused feet looking good in your hot shoes.
Posted by: Donna B. | January 27, 2009 9:45 PM
As a recent PhD recipient, and beginning my postdoc next week, I am at somewhat of a crossroads in my scientific career. I am super excited about starting a new project, investigating antibiotic resistance and cancer therapeutics, and I love the project I'm leaving behind, and I'm leaving it in a state of so many future directions. I am terrified of finding funding, both as a postdoc, and if I decide to pursue a career in academia. I am worried that a job in industry will never present itself to me.
I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I thought after a decade of college, I would not be worried about my future and my career. And yet, here I am, worried.
Posted by: seeree, PhD | January 27, 2009 10:28 PM
Posted by: Colt M. | January 27, 2009 10:38 PM
american science can rock our collective socks off with the proper funding. when even predoc fellowship applicants are learning to propose predictable, reliable, less exciting science after being rejected for submitting something new and sorta-high-risk and totally awesome, we're headed in the wrong direction. we need to do the cool, ambitious, exciting stuff.
Posted by: leigh | January 27, 2009 11:30 PM
I am SO stealing that line...
Posted by: João | January 28, 2009 5:20 AM
I think that's way, way, waaaaaaay down the list of people's worries. I think more pressing concerns are:
1. Training takes too long. You have to work over a decade before you have even a shot at a permanent gig.
2. The career is downright hostile to having a family. Even making a career work with a partner is hard, never mind the whole question of kids.
3. Moving. Many people want to live in a particular place. The job markets are so small in academia, it can be hard to stay in a particular country, never mind any specific geographic location.
So many people are gone way before they're even aware of what "R01" means.
My lab's is having a sale on amazing. We'll deliver it to your door for only $25,000 a year.
Posted by: Zen Faulkes | January 28, 2009 8:48 AM
I have to disagree with you though on one point- I don't think Joe H. Plumber (and I'm not denigrating plumbers - just using them as an example of the average American) really understands what basic scientific research is all about, how it works, who pays for it, why they should pay for it, how it benefits them, and how long it takes for new discoveries to be made and impact them. Yeah- they might be interested in the 20 second sound bite they see on TV, but this is not enough.
Posted by: drdrA | January 28, 2009 10:01 AM
I co-sign drdrA. This seems especially true for the African-American community - which I attempt to serve with my awesome science outreach efforts. As a collective, we're still at an elementary stage of understanding science - what it is, what it ain't, and why it matters. But there are segments that are more like the audiences you eluded to in your post - very curious, get the basics, want to know more, be engaged. Outreach (and science PR) is a multi-tier tackle. Some of us work different parts of the public better than others. I'm still figuring it out my niche, so I'm more a reluctant generalist science outreacher...
Posted by: DNLee | January 28, 2009 10:32 AM
I wonder if the Overlords are using "science" in a different way than we're all assuming? Perhaps by "reviving science", they really mean "reviving the general American public's interest in and respect for science"? In my opinion (as a science Ph.D., but not a researcher), one of the biggest problems facing the American scientific establishment is the apparent view of Joe Q. Public that science is scary, elitist, conducted entirely by self-interested but socially inept nerds, unintelligible to "normal" people, not "real" work, and focused on things that aren't important. And/or that it's properly run by vote--i.e., whatever most people think must be true.
Posted by: Dr. Kate | January 28, 2009 11:33 AM
Isis, there is something you can do to avoid getting wrinkles while soaking in a bubble bath. I would be happy to demonstrate to you, but Mr. Isis might object. What I do is add NaCl to the bath water to increase its ionic strength. When the bath water has the same (or lower) osmotic pressure as fluid in the extravascular space, water doesn’t move into it and cause expansion and wrinkling. NaCl doesn’t affect the foaming action of virtually all soaps and bubble bath forming agents, it is polyvalent cations that do that. If you add enough salt, you can stay in the water until it gets cold without any wrinkling.
Of course it takes a lot of salt, isotonic is about 0.9% (9 grams NaCl per liter). You don’t have to get that high to have a significant effect. The osmotic pressure associated with an RH of normal air is virtually saturated. That takes a lot of salt.
Posted by: daedalus2u | January 28, 2009 4:02 PM
Daedalus, you are a naughty little thing.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | January 28, 2009 4:19 PM
Yes! Fund science properly! A great fear of mine is that I'll never get funding EVER and I will have to live on top ramen for the >6yrs I will be doing my MA/PhD, and since my brain will be underfed, my research will be too. *shudder*
so yes, throw money at us and we will give you totally hawt science!! *does a little scientist-stripper pole dance*
But yeah, the perception of science among the general public should be changed too--we should be thought of not as "lofty ivory tower folks" but "folks who create cool gadgets, awesome medicine, etc." Dunno how we'll go about doing that though.
Posted by: Nekohime | January 28, 2009 4:51 PM
What is a PI? People seem to be always using the term, but I have no idea what it is.
Posted by: Avi Steiner | January 29, 2009 10:02 PM
A "principal investigator," Avi. Never, ever to be written "principle investigator."
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | January 31, 2009 2:00 PM
So, I guess that means that PI's are the people we go to if we thing our principal has been doing bad things but not the people we go to to investigate our principles, right? haha, just kidding.
Thanks, though. It was really aggravating never knowing what that meant.
Posted by: Avi Steiner | February 4, 2009 10:46 PM