OK it's time for a rant. (It's been a while.)
Lets have a discussion about competitiveness in the lab-space. Yesterday over lunch, we had a discussion of all the nastiness going on within labs here at the medical campus. You know, people in the same lab competing against each other. This can escalate to overt hostility and even sabotage. These problems are very abundant, especially in a highly competitive environment like Harvard Medical School.
The academic science establishment acts like a pyramid scheme where lots of grad students and postdocs work for almost nothing on risky projects with the hope of hitting the jackpot. Now of course it helps if you're well read and have good ideas, it helps too if you are a good experimentalist ("good hands" as they say). It also helps if you are a workaholic or just very efficient.
But how does this impact neighborly interactions?
From what I've seen, people tend to veer off into two paths. Aggressive competition or mutual respect and cooperation. I don't know why the atmosphere within certain labs deteriorates but there are definitely differences between labs. Now although I bitch and complain about many things, I do feel lucky that my current environment falls into camp #2 (cooperation). I also feel lucky that for the most part I've collaborated with people and labs that also fall into this second category. But until yesterday I was unaware of how many local labs fall into the first category.
Why?
Well one could blame the PI. Having several individuals working on the same project doesn't help. Allowing certain activities, or simply being out of touch with what's going on can also lead to problems. The out of touch phenomenon becomes more and more pronounced the bigger the lab gets.
Another way a PI can promote lab warfare is to have an extremely focused research agenda. Imagine several ambitious people all working on a couple of questions ... it's inevitable that the lab members will start stepping on each other's toes.
But then there are PIs that do truly evil things: giving away one lab member's project to another lab member, omitting someone's name from a paper, constantly reminding their underlings how little they value them. There are many ways that the PI can torture his/her underlings. This all hidden behind the veil of running the lab for just the science itself.
That brings me to the second source of strain ... personalities. No matter how good a PI may be at lab management, some combinations of temperaments just don't mix. Then there are those lab members that have a chip on their shoulder, others are just paranoid, and still there are the few that are mean spirited. The ones that drive me crazy are those that are oblivious to their fellow lab mates. You know the type ... they turn off the incubator after they're finished using it, despite the fact that it is filled with other people's samples, they leave their mess everywhere. In general these personality problems are not unique to science, you'll find this mix in any human population.
One could also blame the "scientific culture" of individual achievement. Lets face it, postdocs have a gun to their head. It's called publish or perish. This can bring the best out of some people, give stomach cramps to most people, or turn angels into Attilas. If there is little involvement from the department and other outside influences could make a bad situation worse. Work hard now, the payoff comes latter ... when you get your own lab ... if you are lucky. Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice. Compete, compete, compete. Argghhh!!! Want more gory detail, see this issue of The Scientist.
I would like to add one more thing ... scientists are not robots. Too much emphasis is placed on generating progress at all costs. What's the point of progress, if we can't enjoy our lives. Progress for progress' sake, or should I say productivity for productivity's sake, this is our era's greatest sin. To put it in evolutionary terms, academia selects for highly productive and often highly destructive lab environments ... what we end up with is terrible situations where everyone is stressed out. Is this progress?
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Well, I used to be in experimental science, and although I wasn't great "with my hands", I was known as the idea man. Didn't get tenure thanks to backstabbing and left for a government job. Two years later, the lab was shut down by the granting agency for lack of good ideas. Is this progress?
I would like to add one more thing ... scientists are not robots. Too much emphasis is placed on generating progress at all costs. What's the point of progress, if we can't enjoy our lives. Progress for progress' sake, or should I say productivity for productivity's sake, this is our era's greatest sin. To put it in evolutionary terms, academia selects for highly productive and often highly destructive lab environments ... what we end up with is terrible situations where everyone is stressed out. Is this progress?
Amen, all the way, brother.
"But then there are PIs that do truly evil things: giving away one lab member's project to another lab member..."
I saw that happen to a close friend. 3 projects that she worked on as a grad student were 'given' over to the post docs once she got nice preliminary results. Apparently, the post docs could finish the projects faster as they were more 'experienced'.
There is the reality that not every postdoc can ever get their own lab. The exact numbers will vary across disciplines, of course, but a decent estimate is that perhaps one in ten will ever reach that point. And not every PD will want their own lab once they've seen the reality of it close up for long enough (you're responsible for bringing in money for perhaps dozens of people, not just yourself, with even higher stakes than before).
The rest of us? Again, it varies a bit by field, but teaching is probably common, as is industry research. But since realistically we're all most likely to end up doing something else, it will probably pay off to prepare yourself for that in advance. In other words, don't just mindlessly put every ounce of sweat into whatever obscure specialty-project you've got going. Put a bit of effort into broader skills, or more accessible projects (if you can bring something halfway product-like to a prospective employer you've increased your chances quite a bit), or complementary skills - be it language, management training or whatever. Most secondary skills you acquire would be beneficial if you ever land a PI position in any case, so it's not like it's a waste of time.
The point of research, and the point of your life, is not to become a PI. The world does not revolve around you if you become one, and it doesn't come crashing down if you don't. Any outcome is a potential win - except the one combination where you don't get your own lab and you're utterly unprepared, mentally or intellectually, for anything else.
How much of this crap is just Harvard though? I remember when I interviewed there I was turned off, big time, by the research environment. I've never seen another place like it since, not Yale, or Hopkins, or Duke, and certainly not UVa.
I've never heard of a PI at my school doing this stuff, if they did the department heads wouldn't let them have any more grad students.
It may be more prevalent here, but I think that you can find it at most big institutions.
I don't the system would work that way if there weren't so many people who are happy to put on blinders and buy into it. There are a lot of similarities between entering grad school and joining a cult.
To put it in evolutionary terms, academia selects for highly productive and often highly destructive lab environments ... what we end up with is terrible situations where everyone is stressed out.
There are lots of places that aren't like that. You just happen to have selected one of the worst places to be. Why did you do it? :-)
I blame the PI in almost all cases. One of her most important jobs is to make sure the group functions as a group. Everyone should be having a pleasant experience in her lab. After all, science is supposed to be fun.
I agree with Larry: When the idiot in the lab is another grad student or post-doc, I think that part of the blame goes to the PI. A sign of a poor leader is someone who hires based only on credentials and not on personality. If we were all Vulcans then that approach might work, but unfortunately we have personalities.
Another lab environment killer is the boss who won't get involved when a disagreement degrades into mayhem. PI's have to take control of their lab! It's no one elses's responsibility. We apprentices can do a lot, but when push comes to shove, we are often powerless to change the situation.
My god, I even saw this in my non-competitive undergraduate lab! There were only three of us and no competition for anything (it was just a class, not even a research lab), but one of the students would routinely, 'innocently' say things like "oh, I wonder why your results turned out so badly this time?" or "oh, why would you do it that way?" when we would compare results. I can only assume she was trying to curry favor with the prof (who couldn't have cared less). I truly believe when she went on to do graduate work she became the person who snuck into the lab at night to taint everyone else's samples.
As your mum used to say, "The more brilliant they think they are, the more they behave like assholes."
I think my lab avoids this problem most days because we all work on such diverse projects. That can be a handicap, though, in that there's not the same level of specialized focus as in other labs.
I think this phenomenon is not just a function of lab/insitution but also of field. Some fields are more catty, more competitive, and more backstabbing than others.
For example, I like the [my subfield] crew pretty well but have no desire to work in the [different subfield] field because I know way too much about how that group functions.