Зашто је један научник дигао руке од академије и прешао у привреду

[Juanito]

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How science goes wrong
The Economist describes the problem. It is way too convincing. What are the solutions?

 

 

A rant about the huge percentage of false science among all the science we publish just made it to the cover of Economist. And this is not just a rant, it is a well-researched article, in the journalistic sense, so I take it as largely true. The Economist basically says that about half of published science is bullshit. That is a big deal.

 

I am a career scientist who gave up on the publish-or-perish matra after being successful in it. Without going into details I assure you that I did all that needs to be done to get my academic credits, I have 2 doctoral degrees, will get a 3rd soon. I learned what to do in order to make a living from generating and publishing scientific results. About two years ago I lost my interest in publishing because I am convinced that the publish-or-perish mantra is flawed to an extent that it will explode. I do not know when, but I am sure it will. At the age of 39 with a family and a research team to feed, I cannot afford to base our lives on a fragile system. On a train that is accelerating towards the cliff. The Economist article clearly shows the problem, without offering a true solution. My reasoning is a different one than that of the Economist’s and also leads to same conclusion but also makes it clear how to fix it.

 

And I am acting on it since two years now.

The reasoning that made me turn 180 degrees in my career in science goes like this. If you can be a top scientist you’d better be one. Top jobs, like those of full professors, department heads, etc. are only open for people with the best academic ranking, which is nowadays solely based on citations and impact factors. So I must get as much of those as possible. Which means that I must devote my full creativity and working hours, about 60 hr/week to scientific research, because that is what my peers do. I have to write grants and papers and lead postdocs and PhD students to the maximum. Although I am an MD I should cancel my patients, evade teaching duties at the University and kill any activity in general which does not lead to impact factors and citations. in a few years time I would become an internationally known expert in a very narrow field. I will be the superhero of a universe shared with about 100 other scientists in my subspecialty. And I have to pick a field which is highly cited. Genetic-cancer-stem cell yes, physiology of movement no. I am also totally dependent on public grant funding, which is totally dependent on the political decision makers. And here lies the culprit: as an eminent scientist in a narrow and hot field, I have no argument to offer for any politician to support me. Stop here and think about it.

 

 

 

What justifies to buy me a new 2-photon microscope (400 k USD) from public funds and not to spend it on feeding thousands of kids who need it? What justifies my salary if I do no teaching, no clinical work, and my only interface with the general public is through papers even my closest collegues cannot read? What justifies to have a lab in a top-notch research building if we only generate citations and have no intention to develop anything useful? All this public money can be spent on things that are clearly useful for the society. Like roads.

 

The general answers are very weak. Science supports discovery which supports innovation which is the driver of economic growth. Yet the links between these are so weak that the full sentence is simply false. What is the scienctific basis behind the great innovations of the last decades? It was not social scientists who built Facebook an not chemists who built RedBull. Medical professionals even fare worse. And the sting comes here: the most expensive and top-notch a science is, the less reason it has to exist. Or let me rephrase it: the low impact factor papers have far more value for the society than the high impact ones. For example, I did a literature review on ergonomic seating positions. All I found are a handful of scientific papers, and only a few of those were technically sound. Yet it would be extremely important for the public to have a deep understanding of how to sit in a way to prevent disease. But it is too simple science to be published even in medium-ranked journals, so no respected scientist would touch the issue. When I had a study in the lab on diabetic foot, none of my guys would work on it because it was boring. I had to do the experiemnts myself which in the end resulted in a paper plus a patent which was sold to to pharma company.

 

There is ample evidence out there that better science takes you further away from serving the public good.

And the public cannot be fooled forever. There comes a time when it becomes obvious that the emperor has no clothes. When it will be clear that investigating a rare ion channel in great detail has no value for the society at all, not even with the slim chance of finding something truly revolutionary. Because nobody will read it who can act on it and the scientist will move to the next problem anyway. The Economist article is a signal that this time has come.

 

Which translates to the choice of only 2 alternatives: 1, I work towards being the best scientist I can at the risk of being a beggar for public money in ever larger quantities or 2, abandoning the top science and using the tools of the trade for direct public good — and thus being antifragile to the political or societal views of science. It was a tough decision and I deliberately chose the second option.

 

 

 

What can a scientist do if not pursuing the hottest research? Two things: teaching or innovation. Both these career paths were out there for a long time but became less prominent in the last 3 decades. Now it is time to revive them. A scientist used to be either a professor or an engineer type. A professor is a teacher who is at the forefront of knowledge. In order to be a good professor you had to generate new knowledge, put it into context of the existing art and give it to the next generation of students. Current professors only need to generate knoweldge in the form of papers. Putting it into context as popular science articles and teaching notes is looked down. Teaching professors have a far worse status than research professors. Some scientists used to be engineers, like Thomas Edison. They needed to become scientists in order to understand the basics of their inventions. They had innovations supported by science which lead to the common misconception that science is translated to innovation and not vice versa. So to simplify my decision I either have to become a teacher or an innovator. I chose the second.

 

 

 

It was abaout two years ago and this decision had a profound change in the way my research team works. Now I am only 25% employed at the University and 100% in a startup company. The company is funded by private and public money and works towards translating our research into products. We launch our first one, a bone graft in the coming months. The research support of the lab is mainly coming from industry: contract research and support from our own startup.

 

Whatever happens to the public funding schemes does not harm us as we are not relying on those. Paradoxically, the less public money the better for us since we can attract talent better if there are no competing “highly praised academic labs” around. We became robust, even a little anti-fragile to science policy. And interestingly enough, our publication record became stronger, though we only do research which are related to our product development. It seems that the journals are interested in hands-on science after all, at least in the orthopedic field.

 

How far we can go on this road lies in the future. We are dependent on the even more volatile VC market and ultimately the buyers of our products for survival. But we go into battle with real products and not papers.

 

 

 

 

 

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