Program Note

I’ve just tried to import most of the content from the Scientopia version of Drugmonkey into this, my original blog host/site. I’d done some importing after ScienceBlogs cashiered me and maybe once after we started Scientopia. But it looked like nothing had been added since 2014. So I addressed that.

Blogs are dead. Yes. As some of you may have noticed we were having trouble with the Scientopia install over the past several years, what with it periodically leading to browser blocks and security warnings. This was in the wake of a change of hosts that included messing up the appearance with ads and and some formatting changes that I was unable to rapidly fix. It has been a labor of love for some Scientopians behind the scenes but in essence, nobody is really taking care of it. We have no $ for hosting, the nascent attempts at ads never really generated enough to cover the bills. As you may know I have steadfastedly resisted being anything other than content, particularly when there were some who wanted to be involved but weren’t really blogging much and my content was driving most of the traffic.

I have decided it is time to import my blather back to wordpress.com to facilitate my linking to old posts on the twitter and to stave off the inevitable, when Scientopia goes dark and the domain is bought by some spam farm.

I expect that if I do blog now and again it will be here on the old site.

ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

Biased objective metrics

As you know, Dear Reader, one of the things that annoys me the most is being put in the position of having to actually defend Glam, no matter how tangentially. So I’m irritated.

Today’s annoyance is related to the perennial discussion of using metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor of journals in which a professorial candidate’s papers are published as a way to prioritize them for a job search. You can add h-index and citations of the candidate’s papers on an individual basis on this heap if you like.

The Savvy Scientist in these discussions is very sure that since these measures, ostensibly objective, are in fact subject to “bias”, this renders them risible as useful decision criteria.

We then typically downshift to someone yelling about how the only one true way to evaluate a scientist is to READ HER PAPERS and make your decisions accordingly. About “merit”. About who is better and who is worse as a scientist. About who should make the short list. About who should be offered employment.

The Savvy Scientist may even demonstrate that they are a Savvy Woke Scientist by yelling about how the clear biases in objective metrics of scientific ability and accomplishment work to the disfavor of non-majoritarians. To hinder the advancement of diversity goals by under-counting the qualities of URM, women, those of less famous training pedigree, etc.

So obviously all decisions should be made by a handful of people on a hiring committee reading papers deeply and meaningfully offering their informed view on merit. Because the only possible reason that academic science uses those silly, risibly useless, so called objective measures is because everyone is too lazy to do the hard work.

What gets lost in all of this is any thinking about WHY we have reason to use objective measures in the first place.

Nobody, in their Savvy Scientist ranting, seems to every consider this. They fail to consider the incredibly biased subjectivity of a handful of profs reading papers and deciding if they are good, impactful, important, creative, etc, etc.

Even before we get to the vagaries of scientific interests, there are hugely unjustified interpersonal biases in evaluating work products. We know this from the studies where legal briefs were de/misidentified. We can infer this from various resume-call back studies. We can infer this from citation homophily studies. Have you not every heard fellow scientists say stuff like “well, I just don’t trust the work from that lab”? or “nobody can replicate their work”? I sure have. From people that should know better. And whenever I challenge them as to why….let us just say the reasons are not objective. And don’t even get me started about the “replication crisis” and how it applies to such statements.

Then, even absent any sort of interpersonal bias, we get to the vast array of scientific biases that are dressed up as objective merit evaluations but really just boil down to “I say this is good because it is what I am interested in”. or “because they do things like I do”>

Citations metrics are an attempt to crowd source that quality evaluation so as to minimize the input of any particular bias.

That, for the slower members of the group, is a VERY GOOD THING!

The proper response to an objective measure that is subject to (known) biases is not to throw the baby out onto the midden heap of completely subjective “merit” evaluation.

The proper response is to account for the (known) biases.

Rule Followers

As always Dear Reader, I start with personal confession so you know how to read my biases appropriately.

I am a life time Rule Follower.

I am also a life time Self-Appointed Punisher of Those Who Think the Rules Do Not Apply to Them.

What does “Rule Follower” mean to me? No, not some sort of retentive allegiance to any possible guideline or rule, explicit or implicit. I’ve been known to speed once in awhile. It doesn’t even mean that rule followers are going to agree with, and follow, every rule imaginable for any scenario. It is just an orientation of a person that believes there are such things as rules of behavior, these rules are good things as a social or community compact and that it is a good idea to adhere to them as a general rule. It is a good idea to work within the rules and that this is what is best for society, but also for the self.

The other kind of person, the “Rules Don’t Apply to ME” type, is not necessarily a complete sociopath*. And, in fact, such people may actually be a Rule Follower when it comes to the really big, obvious and Important (in their view) rules. But these are people that do not agree that all of the implicit social rules that Rule Followers follow actually exist. They do not believe that these rules apply to them, and often extend that to the misdemeanor sort of actual formal Rules, aka The Law.

Let’s talk rules of the road- these are the people who routinely speed, California Stop right on reds, and arc into the far lane when making a turn on a multi-lane road. These are the people that bypass a line of patiently waiting traffic and then expect to squeeze into the front of the line with an airy “oops, my badeee, thanks!” smile and wave. They are the ones that cause all sorts of merging havoc because they can’t be arsed to simply go down to the next street or exit to recover from their failure to plan ahead. These are often the people who, despite living in a State with very well defined rules of the road for bicycle traffic, self-righteously violate those rules as a car driver and complain about how the law-compliant bicycle rider is the one in the wrong.

But above all else, these people feel entitled to their behavior. It is an EXTREME OUTRAGE whenever they are disciplined in any way for their selfish and rude behavior that is designed to advantage themselves at the cost to (many) others.

If you don’t let them in the traffic line, you are the asshole. When you make the left turn into lane 2 and they barely manage to keep from hitting you as they fail to arc their own turn properly..you are the asshole. When they walk at you three abreast on the sidewalk and you eyeball the muppethugger trying to edge you off your single lane coming the other way and give every indication you are willing to bodycheck their selfish ass until they finally grudgingly rack it the fuck in…YOU are the asshole.

When they finally get a minor traffic citation for their speeding or failing to stop on a right on red… Oh, sister. It’s forty minutes of complaining rationalization about how unfair this is and why are those cops not solving real crimes and oh woe is me for a ticket they can easily pay. Back in the day when it was still illegal, this was the person caught for a minor weed possession citation who didn’t just pay it but had to go on at length about how outrageous it was to get penalized for their obvious violation of the rules. Don’t even get me started about how these people react to a citation for riding their bicycle on the sidewalk (illegal!) instead of in the street (the law they personally disagree with).

Back before Covid you could identify these two types by hanging around the bulk food bin at your local hippy grocery store. Rule Followers do not sample the items before paying and exiting the store. Those other people…..

Hopefully I’ve chosen examples that get you into the proper mindset of a complex interplay of formal rules that not everyone follows and informal rules of conduct that not everyone follows. I shouldn’t have to draw your attention to how the “Rules Don’t Apply to Me” sail along with convenient interpretations, feigned ignorances and post-hoc everyone-does-it rationales to make their lives a lot easier. That’s right, it’s convenient to not follow the rules, it gets them ahead and frankly those Rule Followers are beta luser cucks for not living a life of personal freedom!

We’re actually in the midst of one of these scenarios right now.

Covid vaccination

As you are aware, there are formal “tiers” being promulgated for who gets schedule for vaccines at which particular time. You know the age cutoffs- we started with 75+ and are now at 65+ in most locations. Then there are the job categories. Health care workers are up first, and then we are working a cascade of importance given occupation. Well, in my environment we had a moment in which “lab workers” were greenlit and Oh, the science lab types rushed to make their appointments. After a short interval, the hammer came down because “lab” meant “lab actually dealing with clinical care and health assessment samples” and not just “any goofaloon who says they work in a lab”.

Trust me, those at the head of that rush (or those pushing as the lab head or institution head) were not the Rule Followers. It was, rather, those types of people who are keen to conveniently define some situation to their own advantage and never consider for a second if they are breaking the Rules.

Then there have been some vaccine situations that are even murkier. We’ve seen on biomedical science tweeter that many lab head prof types have had the opportunity to get vaccinated out of their apparent tier. It seemed, especially in the earlier days prior to vaccine super centers, that a University associated health system would reach the end of their scheduled patients for the day and have extra vaccine.

[ In case anyone has been hiding under a rock, the first vaccines are fragile. They have to be frozen for storage in many cases and thus thawed out. They may not be stable overnight once the vial in question has been opened. In some cases the stored version may need to be “made up” with vehicles or adjuvants or whatever additional components. ]

“Extra” vaccine in the sense of active doses that would otherwise be lost / disposed of if there was no arm to stick it in. Employees who are on campus or close by, can readily be rounded up on short notice, and have no reason to complain if they can’t get vaccinated that particular day, make up this population of arms.

Some Rule Followers were uncomfortable with this.

You will recognize those other types. They were the ones triumphantly posting their good luck on the internet.

In my region, we next started to have vaccine “super centers”. These centers recruited lay volunteers to help out, keep an eye on patients, assist with traffic flow, run to the gloves/syringe depot, etc. And, as with the original health center scenario, there were excess doses available at the end of the day which were offered to the volunteers.

Again, some Rule Followers were uncomfortable with this. Especially because in the early days it was totally on the DL. The charge nurse closest to you would pull a volunteer aside and quietly suggest waiting around at the end of the day just “in case”. It was all pretty sketchy sounding….. to a Rule Follower. The other type of person? NO PROBLEM! They were right there on day one, baby! Vacc’d!

Eventually the volunteer offer policy became someone formalized in my location. Let me tell you, this was a slight relief to a Rule Follower. It for sure decreases the discomfort over admitting one’s good fortune on the intertoobs.

But! It’s not over yet! I mean, these are not formalized processes and the whole vaccine super-center is already chaos just running the patients through. So again, the Rules Don’t Need To Be Followed types are most likely to do the self-advocacy necessary to get that shot in their arm as quickly and assuredly as possible. Remember, it’s only the excess doses that might be available. And you have to keep your head up on what the (rapidly shifting and evolving) procedure might be at your location if you want to be offered vaccine.

Fam, I’m not going to lie. I leaned in hard on anyone I think of as a Rule Follower when I was relating the advantages of volunteering** at one of our vaccine super-centers. I know what we are like. I tell them as much about the chaotic process as I know so as to prepare them for self-advocacy, instead of their native reticence to act without clear understanding of rules that entitle them to get stuck with mRNA.

Still with me?

NIH has been cracking down on URLs in grant applications lately. I don’t know why and maybe it has to do with their recent hoopla about “integrity of review” and people supposedly sharing review materials with outside parties (in clear violation of the review confidentiality RULES, I will note). Anyway, ever since forever you are not supposed to put URL links in your grant applications and reviewers are exhorted never ever to click on a link in a grant. It’s always been explained to me in the context of IP address tracking and identifying the specific reviewers on a panel that might be assigned to a particular application. Whatever. It always seemed a little paranoid to me. But the Rules were exceptionally clear. This was even reinforced with the new Biosketch format that motivated some sort of easy link to one’s fuller set of publications. NIH permits PubMed links and even invented up this whole MyBibliography dealio at MyNCBI to serve this purpose.

Anyway there has been a few kerfuffles of EXTREME ANGER on Science Twitter from applicants who had their proposals rejected prior to review for including URLs. It is an OUTRAGE, you see, that they should be busted for this clear violation of the rules. Which allegedly, according to Those To Whom Rules Do Not Apply, were incredibly arcane rules that they could not possibly be expected to know and waaah, the last three proposals had the same link and weren’t rejected and it isn’t FAAAAAIIIIR!

My gut reaction is really no different than the one I have turning left in a two lane turn or walking at sidewalk hogs. Or the one I have when a habitual traffic law violator finally has to pay a minor fine. Ya fucked around and found out. As the kids say these days.

For some additional perspective, I’ve been reviewing NIH grants since the days when paper hard copies were submitted by the applicant and delivered to the reviewers as such. Pages could be missing if the copier effed up- there was no opportunity to fix this once a reviewer noticed it one week prior to the meeting. Font size shenanigans were seemingly more readily played. And even in the days since, as we’ve moved to electronic documents, there are oodles and oodles of rules for constructing the application. No “in prep” citations in the old Biosketch….people did it anyway. No substituting key methods in the Vertebrate Animals section…..people still do it anyway. Fonts and font size, okay, but what about vertical line spacing….people fudge that anyway. Expand figure “legends” (where font size can be smaller) to incorporate stuff that (maybe?) should really be in the font-controlled parts of the text. Etc, etc, etc.

And I am here to tell you that in many of these cases there was no formal enforcement mechanism. Ask the SRO about a flagrant violation and you’d get some sort of pablum about “well, you are not obliged to consider that material..”. Font size? “well…..I guess that’s up to the panel”. Which is enraging to a Rule Follower. Because even if you want to enforce the rules, how do you do it? How do you “ignore” that manuscript described as in prep, or make sure the other reviewers do? How do you fight with other reviewers about how key methods are “missing” when they are free to give good scores even if that material didn’t appear anywhere in figure legend, Vertebrate Animals or, ISYN, a 25% of the page “footnote” in microfont. Or how do your respond if they say “well, I’m confident this investigator can work it out”?

If, in the old days, you gave a crappy score to a proposal that everyone loved by saying “I put a ruler on the vertical and they’ve cheated” the panel would side eye you, vote a fundable score and fuck over any of your subsequent proposals that they read.

Or such might be your concern if your instinct was to Enforce the Rules.

Anyway, I’m happy to see CSR Receipt and Referral enforce rules of the road. I don’t think it an outrage at all. The greater outrage is all the people who have been able to skirt or ignore the rules and advantage themselves against those of us who do follow the rules***.

__

*Some of my best friends are habitual non-followers-of-rules.

**I recommend volunteering at a vaccine super station if you have the opportunity. It is pretty cool just to see how your health care community is reacting in this highly unusual once-in-a-generation crisis. And its cool, for those of us with zero relevant skills, to have at least a tiny chance to help out. Those are the Rules, you know? 🙂

***Cue Non-Followers-of-Rules who, Trumplipublican- and bothsiders-media-like, are absolutely insistent then when they manage to catch a habitual Rule Follower in some violation it proves that we’re all the same. That their flagrant and continual behavior is somehow balanced by one transgression of someone else.

Happy 2021!!!!!

As we turn our backs on 2020, a real jackass of a year, I wish you all good fortune. May your grant applications be funded, your papers be published and your exciting new science keep you jumping to see new data every week.

I’m not a big fan of huge sweeping goals and resolutions, personally. And right now, I am going to be satisfied with putting my research program back together.

As you will recall, I changed jobs in early 2019. We were juuuuusst getting the laboratory into something resembling operational shape in January 2020. And then Covid hit.

This has been very much not-fun for me. As you can imagine. The hardest thing of all is the loss of the data stream. As I may have mentioned before this is the bulk of the reason why I do this job. To see the data.

But I also picked up some new responsibilities in 2020, in part due to the job change and in part due to the death of George Floyd, murdered by Minneapolis police officers in May. Our various academic institutions had a bit of a moment. This caused an opening. A “strike while the iron is hot” moment. From my perspective anyway. So, despite a certain weariness with institutional efforts on diversity, I’m back in the fight. I say yes to way more things than I would have prior to May of 2020. I am accepting more obvious tokenism offers. I am bearing down.

I plan to continue that for a little bit more. Until the steam seems to have escaped and the ingot as cold as the earth.

I have been delighted to see many of you doing the same. Recognizing this moment and getting down to work with hammer and tongs. I know you can’t all sustain these efforts forever. Do it as long as you can. And then rest knowing you did your part.

Happy New Year.

Writing in the Time of Corona

Despite evidence to the contrary on this blog, some people who don’t like to write have occasionally said things in the vein of “oh, but you are such a good writer”. Sometimes this is by way of trying to get me to do some writing for them in the non-professional setting. Sometimes this is a sort of suggestion that somehow it is easier for me to write than it is for them to write, in the professional setting.

I don’t know. I certainly used to be a better writer and my dubious blogging hobby has certainly contributed to making my written product worse. Maybe I’m just getting that Agatha Christie thing early (her word variety constricted towards her final books, people suggest that was evidence of dementia).

But for decades now, I view my primary job as a writing job. When it comes right down to the essentials, an academic scientist is supposed to publish papers. This requires that someone write papers. I view this as the job of the PI, as much as anyone else. I even view it as the primary responsibility of the PI over everyone else, because the PI is where the buck stops. My personnel justification blurb in every one of my grants says so. That I’ll take responsibility for publishing the results. Postdocs are described as assisting me with that task. (Come to think of it, I can’t remember exactly how most people handle this in grants that I’ve reviewed.)

Opinions and practices vary on this. Some would assert that no PI should ever be writing a primary draft of a research paper and only rarely a review. Editing only, in the service of training other academic persons in the laboratory to, well, write. Some would kvetch about the relative ratio of writing effort of the PI versus other people in the laboratory. Certainly, when my spouse would prefer I was doing something other than writing, I get an earful about how in lab X, Y and Z the PI never writes and the awesome postdocs basically just hand over submit ready drafts and why isn’t my lab like that. But I digress.

I also have similar views on grant writing, namely that in order to publish papers one must have data from which to draw upon and that requires funds. To generate the data, therefore, someone has to write grant proposals. This is, in my view, a necessary job. And once again, the buck stops with the PI. Once again, practices vary in terms of who is doing the writing. Once again, strategies for writing those grants vary. A lot. But what doesn’t vary is that someone has to do a fair bit of writing.

I like writing papers. The process itself isn’t always smooth and it isn’t always super enjoyable. But all things equal, I feel LIKE I AM DOING MY JOB when I am sitting at my keyboard, working to move a manuscript closer to publication. Original drafting, hard core text writing, editing, drawing figures and doing analysis iteratively as you realize your writing has brought you to that necessity…I enjoy this. And I don’t need a lot of interruption (sorry, “social interaction”) when I am doing so.

In the past year or so, my work/life etc has evolved to where I spend 1-2 evenings a week in my office up to about 11 or 12 after dinner just writing. I dodge out for dinner so that my postdocs have no reason to stick around and then I come back in when the coast is clear.

I’m finding life in the time of Corona to simply push those intervals of quiet writing time earlier in the day. I have a houseful of chronologically shifted teens, which is awesome. They often don’t emerge from their rooms until noon…or later. Only my youngest needs much of my input on breakfast and even that is more a vague feeling of lingering responsibility than actual need. Sorry, not trying to rub it in for those of you with younger children. Just acknowledging that this is not a bad time in parenthood for me.

So I get to write. It’s the most productive thing I have to do these days. Push manuscripts closer and closer to being published.

It’s my job. We have datasets. We have things that should and will be papers eventually.

So on a daily and tactical level, things are not too bad for me.

Blogging in the Time of Corona

I would have predicted, if anyone had told me a few months back that I’d be sitting under home quarantine for weeks at a time, that I’d be blogging up a storm to compensate.

Obviously, I’m not.

Our business of doing science has taken a serious shot right in the fo’castle and we, most of us anyway, are not doing things the same on a day to day basis. You would think I would have things to say about this. And maybe I do, I just have no idea where to begin.

I’m scared for my lab’s survival. I almost always am, true, but this is different. I’m not going to sing you my tale of woes today because many, many of you are in the same boat.

The shut down doesn’t do much of anything good for our usual problems and anxieties. There has been some relief for the tenure seekers, true. Many Universities have announced that there will be tenure clock delays permitted and that everybody in the process, from Tenure and Promotions Committees to letter writers will be exhorted to take the Time of Corona into account when assessing productivity. There has been some relief for those who are paid from NIH grants in that NIH has basically said it is okay to keep paying people even if their productivity has changed dramatically.

But this doesn’t help the person who is seeking tenure to actually get tenure, as far as I can tell. It’s not as if a delay in clock makes things magically better. We often have years-long arcs of developing our research programs, of making the efforts of our laboratories pay off in published work. And while yes, if you happened to be doing well prior to March of this year, you can ride that. But if you were just getting going? If the research models were finally reaching productivity? If maybe you had just managed to secure a grant, at long last, and were looking to CRANK it for a year to ensure tenure? Or maybe you were just about to collect that preliminary data that was going to push your 12th R01 attempt over the line…?

How is there any predictable way that a delayed clock or supposed relaxation of review standards are supposed to help with this? Unless the assurance from your University is that they are just going to hand you tenure now, I’m sorry, but you should be terrified. I am terrified FOR you.

Grants. Ah, grants. Yes the NIH has reiterated there is spending flexibility. But all we are doing is burning daylight. Staff are being paid but we’re getting less productivity per person hour. If we are doing it right, that is. If we are, in fact, shutting it down. Those weeks and months are just ticking away. And we are still in the same nightmare of funding….only worse. There is no guarantee that grant review in the coming rounds will take Corona-related excuses seriously. And even if they do, this is still competition. A competition where if you’ve happened to be more productive than the next person, your chances are better. Are the preliminary data supportive? Is your productivity coming along? Well, the next PI looks fine and you look bad so…. so sorry, ND. Nobody can ever have confidence that where they are when they shut down for corona will ever be enough to get them their next bit of funding.

I don’t see any way for the NIH to navigate this. Sure, they could give out supplements to existing grants. But, that only benefits the currently funded. Bridge awards for those that had near-miss scores? Sure, but how many can they afford? What impact would this have on new grants? After all, the NIH shows no signs yet of shutting down receipt and review or of funding per Council round as normal. But if we are relying on this, then we are under huge pressure to keep submitting grants as normal. Which would be helped by new Preliminary Data. And more publications.

So we PIs are hugely, hugely still motivated to work as normal. To seek any excuse as to why our ongoing studies are absolutely essential. To keep valuable stuff going, by hook or by crook….

Among other reasons, WE DON’T KNOW THE END DATE!

It could be olly-olly ox in free at almost any moment. If we get relieved from these duck-and-cover restrictions in a week or two, well, those who euthanized a bunch of research subjects are going to look really, really stupid. If we battened down the lab for the six-month window, we’re going to be a lot slower to get back up to speed. And those June/July grant submission dates are fast approaching. So are the October / November ones, frankly.

I have no answers. I know for a fact that some folks are fighting lab closures inch by inch and continue to generate data. I know some other folks shut it right down to zero at the first intimation this was coming. I know the former will be advantaged in the very near future and the latter will pay a price.

and winter is coming.

Forgiveness

I’ve already lost the thread to it but some friend of Joi Ito, the MIT Media Lab guy who took Epstein’s money, was recently trying to defend his actions. If I caught the gist of the piece, it was that Ito allegedly really believed that Epstein ad been reformed, or at least had been sufficiently frightened by his legal consequences not to re-offend with his raping of children.

I want to get past the question of whether Ito was disingenuous or so blinded by what he wanted (Epstein’s money) that he was willing to fool himself. I want to address the issue of forgiveness. Because even if Ito genuinely believed Epstein was reformed, scared and would never in a million years offend again…he had to forgive him for his past actions.

I was pondering this on my commute this morning.

I do not forgive.

I only rarely forget.

I hold grudges for decades.

I have been known to ruminate and dwell and to steep.

I am trying my best to come up with cases where I’ve suffered a significant harm or insult from someone and managed to forgive them at a later date. I’m not recalling any such thing.

On the other hand, nobody has ever offered me millions of dollars to overlook their past behavior, either.

Money Talks

When you are looking to advance in academic science, sure everything is supposed to be about “scientific merit”. And who knows, maybe that is indeed a very large driver but as we all know there is nothing objective about that assessment. CNS pubs, JIF points, per article citations, overall scientist citations, h-index, “actually reading the papers”….. pfagh.

It’s the money that is a universal language. Grant money. Money that is under your control right now. Your history of acquiring grant money and the deployment of that history to predict your future ability to secure grant money.

We talk about this topic now and again. I have made this blog in very large part about how getting grant money works (and fails to work) within the US biomedical science setting. In this I get pushback from a lot of directions, including those individuals that are basically only lamenting that this is a reality. We also have those individuals that think it is gauche to talk about such things, indecorous to reveal our dirty scrabbling efforts or to suggest that fellow scientists should think hard about how to get grants.

Well, I’ve just been through a process in which no fewer than three academic institutes were deciding whether to employ YHN and simultaneously deciding whether to employ some other scientists working in roughly the same areas as me. And I am here to tell you…it is better to have grant money than not to have grant money. I happened to be on an upswing when most of the decisions were being made and it counted. A lot.

So keep sending in those applications people. Keep your foot on the floor. It is what gets you opportunity. It is what keeps you employed. It is what allows your other talents (like that science stuff) to be so much as viewed. Don’t let anyone gaslight you with “don’t get to big for your britches, junior” or “grants are a means not an ends” (yeah no duh, what does that even mean) or versions of “uppity” or “it’s only fair if every person that wants a grant gets one” or anything else. For you, you in particular? The lesson is clear. Get the money. Do the science. Get some more money. Do some more science.

Minor update

I’m in the midst of a significant career….something. Plainly put, I’m changing jobs in the very near future and will be moving my laboratory. As you are used to, Dear Reader, I have a tendency to work out stuff I’ve been thinking about on the blog. Sometimes it is long delayed from the triggering event(s). Sometimes it comes up as a weird pastiche of many different experiences that I have drawn together in my mind. Most of the time I think that what I have been pondering may have some value in terms of the career aspects of this blog that keeps some Readers coming around.

This will be no different.

So I thought I should give a little bit of alert and outline to my remaining Readers.

Up to this point, as you know, I describe my job as an exclusively soft money gig. I’m responsible for securing grants to fund my lab operation and the salaries of my staff. Most pointedly, my own. I tend not to be highly specific about my career timeline on the blog but I’m coming up on two decades as a lab head and as a continuously NIH funded one at that. (touch wood). So this feels like a big mid-career change of the variety that I would prefer there be only one. I’ve been thinking a lot over the past two years about “the second half of my career” in the context of this transition.

Oh yeah. It has been a two year process. And it has a story. Actually, it has many stories. With many, many moving parts and it involves an unusually large number of other people. So. It is not impossible that I will feel unable to talk about some parts of this and may have to flat out lie about some other things if I think it violates someone’s privacy too much. And I will use my usual unreservedly heavy hand of moderation in the comments if anyone strays too far afield with specifics.

At any rate, the thumbnail sketch is this. I will be in a University med school department environment within a few months. It is still a soft money type gig and the expectations of me do not change. I’m supposed to get grants, do science and publish science. I do, however, get partial hard money support of my salary which is a change. Other major changes include the fact I’m going to have to do some teaching and service work that I’ve been able to essentially dodge up to this point, but nothing terribly onerous. I anticipate dealing with a lot more bureaucracy than I had to negotiate up until now.

So….why?

Before I address that, I have some more blog notes. I started this blog in 2007, using a pseudonym for various reasons of which only some involve me in a personal way. As part of that, and to support those reasons, I tried to keep a lot of personal specifics out of the discussion. This has had its pluses and minuses over the years, and some hilariousity when people assumed I was older, whiter, more female and a host of other things compared with my actual self. Nevertheless it was always my mantra that pseuds only work in a particular direction and if anyone knows your real voice they are going to sniff out your pseud in a trice. And I’ve found this to be true. It is occasionally so obvious to some people that they literally cannot believe you mean the pseud to actually be detached from your real identity and they will bust out with the connection in broad daylight without any particular malign intent. Some time ago a not-all-that-close-to-me colleague referred to my pseud as “the worst kept secret in drug abuse (science)”. Probably true. Most pertinently, my current department colleagues know, my trainees know and my colleagues’ trainees know. The point person on the hire that has resulted in my new job has known since before this all started- pretty sure some key communications occurred on Twitter DMs. Some of the colleagues in the department I am joining know. The blog is something I mention on career brag documents so anyone who was asked to write a reference letter for me knows. The point is that this narrows the space of who I am potentially talking about when I indirectly mention others who are involved in my current job transition. Or when I only mention things that involve other people. So I’m going to have to be a little bit careful, although inevitably my points about myself may draw some contrasts or point some fingers.

On to the “whys”.

• I miss being on a University campus.
• I’ve always existed on the outskirts of a department that is itself on the outskirts of my current institution. Scientifically and politically, which has had implications for my career, believe me. I am joining a department for which my work is more in the comfort zone. For now, at least, I feel my work will be a lot more appreciated.
• My current institution has had its financial and administrative instability hit the papers occasionally. No need for specifics but ultimately I cannot be 100% certain my job in it, or the institution itself, will last my desired career length. The University I am joining will still be here after my grand children are dead.
• Partial hard money salary, with a tenure guarantee of same until I retire, is a large contrast with my prospects in my current gig.

I was going to say “in no particular order” but right now reading this, it looks like my actual order. fwiw. As far as the other stuff goes, you may assume it is all workable at the worst. Space and support for my work and what not. All good enough to make it work.

On the obsessive hobbies of scientists

This is an extension to some thoughts I posted on Twitter awhile ago.

There is a certain species of “amazing scientist who is revolutionizing everything” biographical puff piece that strikes an interesting chord about academics. These are details that come up in seminar introductions, blog posts, media profiles, institutional profiles, award nominations and obituaries.

I am referring specifically to the part where they talk about hobbies, interests and activities that are not directly related to work*.

I surmise the hobby is discussed in these types of pieces to humanize the nerd or to amaze you that their non-science time is just as obsessive and elite as their science**. Possibly both of these apply simultaneously. Typical realms of discussion are obsessive sports participation (very commonly running long distance events or triathlon competition), foodie obsession (he cooks lavish meals for his lab), wine snobbery or the arts. With respect to the arts, you most commonly hear about how the scientist being lionized plays a musical instrument in a band. Presumably this ties into our societal obsession with rock n rollers and their supposed rebel natures. We know Francis Collins plays the guitar in a band. We know Nora Volkow likes to run. I can’t remember hearing about any community minded hobbies of any of the other IC directors.

You don’t hear about how the awesome scientist pulls his (it’s usually a him) weight at home in these types of settings. Obsessive plumbing leak fixer! Soccer dad! Makes meals for his family on the regular!

You don’t hear about community stuff either. Many scientists participate in local groups for improving the schools or city governance or their faith community. Many spend their time volunteering in the classroom.

And it isn’t just the puff pieces that draw this distinction between the externally-focused activities and the obsessively internally-focused ones. Academic science actually punishes people for anything they do that isn’t self-oriented.

If one is highly accomplished in science it is okay to have hobbies as long as they are obsessively self-involved ones like running marathons. It is obvious that any sort of external activity or hobby is only okay if the science work is considered to be of the highest rank. If one is considering a middle of the road scientist then clearly they should be spending more time at work and less time training for a marathon!

Look, I get that we like to know more about people’s life outside of their work. Pursuit of the personal detail fuels industries valued in the billions of dollars when it comes to famous movie stars, musicians, politicians and professional athletes. There is no reason that people in science wouldn’t also have an interest in the non-work activities of the more famous members of our professions.

But still. The relative selectivity in what we choose to lionize versus criticize about our science peers seems meaningful to me. It has an effect on all of us, including (most importantly) our trainees. Personally, I do not want people in science thinking (no matter how implicitly) that obsessive, self-involved hobbies are associated with the most revered scientists and that community type, external benefit activities are the hallmark of the scientific nobody.

Perhaps we could think twice about those seminar speaker intros we give and the nature of the puff pieces we write or contribute background to.

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*Calm yourselves debate champeens. This set of observations is about which hobbies we choose to laud in a professional context and which ones we do not. It doesn’t mean you are horrible for running every day. Exercise is healthy and good for you. We should all do more of it.

**And I should also note that this doesn’t have to devolve into “I only have time for work” snark, no matter the reality. I’m not criticizing hobbies and activities at all. I think that is great if you have things that make you happy. Again, this is about the type of such non-science hobbies that we find reason to congratulate or merely to note in a professionally-oriented biographical piece.

Zealots

One of my favorite thing about this blog, as you know Dear Reader, is the way it exposes me (and you) to the varied perspectives of academic scientists. Scientists that seemingly share a lot of workplace and career commonalities which, on examination, turn out to differ in both expected and unexpected ways. I think we all learn a lot about the conduct of science in the US and worldwide (to lesser extent) in this process.

Despite numerous pointed discussions about differences of experience and opinion for over a decade now, it still manages to surprise me that so many scientists cannot grasp a simple fact.

The way that you do science, the way the people around you do science and the way you think science should be done are always but one minor variant on a broad, broad distribution of behaviors and habits. Much of this is on clear display from public evidence. The journals that you read. The articles that you read. The ones that you don’t but can’t possible miss knowing that they exist. Grant funding agencies. Who gets funded. Universities. Med schools within Universities. Research Institutions or foundations. Your colleagues. Your mentors and trainees. Your grad school drinking buddies. Conference friends and academic society behaviors.

It is really hard to miss. IMO.

And yet.

We still have this species of dumbass on the internet that can’t get it through his* thick head that his experiences, opinions and, yes, those of his circle of reflecting room buddies and acolytes, is but a drop in the bucket.

And they almost invariable start bleating on about how their perspective is not only the right way to do things but that some other practice is unethical and immoral. Despite the evidence (again, often quite public evidence) that large swaths of scientists do their work in this totally other, and allegedly unethical, way.

The topic of the week is data leeching, aka the OpenAccessEleventy perspective that every data set you generate in your laboratory should be made available in easily understood, carefully curated format for anyone to download. These leeches then insist that anyone should be free to use these data in any way they choose with barely the slightest acknowledgment of the person who generated the data.

Nobody does this. Right? It’s a tiny minority of all academic scientific endeavor that meets this standard at present. Limited in the individuals, limited in the data types and limited in the scope even within most individuals who DO share data in this way. Maybe we are moving to a broader adoption of these practices. Maybe we will see significant advance. But we’re not there right now.

Pretending we are, with no apparent recognition of the relative proportions across academic science, verges on the insane. Yes, like literally delusional insanity**.

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*94.67% male

**I am not a psychiatristTM

Don’t be a jerk when asking for a meeting

A recent twitt cued a thought.

whenever people ask me to meet them and don’t tell me why, I spend the next hours until the meeting stressing that I’m somehow in trouble despite being an adult

— am i just human flavored water? (@itatiVCS) June 3, 2018

Don’t ask your staff for a meeting without giving an indication of what it is about.

“Hey, I need to see you” can be very anxiety provoking.

“Come see me about the upcoming meeting Abstracts deadline” is not that hard to do.

“We need to talk about the way we’re doing this experiment” is duck soup.

Try to remember this when summoning your techs or trainees.

Grinders

I cracked wise

Hygienist: “You are clenching your teeth, you need a night guard.”

Me: “I run a grant funded science lab. My friend, I need a DAY guard.”

— Drug Monkey (@drugmonkeyblog) May 31, 2018

and then Tweeps came out of the woodwork to say they had night AND day guards.

Is this normal life under Trump?

Is this a risk of academic science?

Thought of the Day

I started blogging in a fit of anger about some aspect of the grant-funded scientific research career or other.

In the course of venting a lot of spleen about things that were bothering me, I met a lot of new people, virtually and eventually in real life.

These people taught me a lot of interesting stuff. Some career related, some scientific, some just plain old life.

It has been an interesting decade.

Thanks. To all my Readers and Commenters over the years.

Thank you.

Finishing projects

If you are paid by the taxpayers, or generous private philanthropists, of your country to do science, you owe them a product. An attempt to generate knowledge. This is one of the things that orients much of my professional behavior, as I think I make clear on this blog.

If you haven’t published your scientific work, it doesn’t exist. This is perhaps an excessive way to put it but I do think you should try to publish the work you accomplish with other people’s money.

Much of my irritation with the publication game, prestige chasing, delusions of complete stories, priority / scooping fears and competition for scarce funding resources can be traced back to these two orienting principles of mine.

My irritation with such things does not, however, keep them from influencing my career. It does not save me from being pressured not to give the funders their due.

It is not unusual for my lab, and I suspect many labs, to have thrown a fair amount of effort and resources into a set of investigations and to realize a lot more will be required to publish. “Required”, I should say because the threshold for publication is highly variable.

Do I throw the additional resources into an effort to save what is half or three-quarters of a paper? To make the project to date publishable? I mean, we already know the answer and it is less than earth shaking. It was a good thing to look into, of course. Years ago a study section of my peers told us so to the tune of a very low single digit percentile on a grant application. But now I know the answer and it probably doesn’t support a lot of follow-up work.

Our interests in the lab have moved along on several different directions. We have new funding and, always, always, future funding to pursue. Returning to the past is just a drag on the future, right?

I sometimes feel that nobody other than me is so stupid as to remember that I owe something. I was funded by other people’s money to follow a set of scientific inquiries into possible health implications of several things. I feel as though I should figure out how to publish the main thing(s) we learned. Even if that requires some additional studies be run to make something that I feel is already answered into something “publishable”.