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Notes from a desert island II - we will survive

2010; The Company of Biologists; Volume: 123; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1242/jcs.068916

1477-9137

Mole,

Archaeology and Historical Studies

I hate disco. Oh, I like to dance and I'm okay for an insectivore, but disco music makes my skin crawl. But for some odd reason, disco is somehow rife with references to survival ("Staying Alive", "I Will Survive"), even if it was only surviving the party scene. So, much as I hate it, maybe our current efforts to survive the economic wasteland we find ourselves in will be done to a driving, disco beat. As I said before: welcome to the desert.If you are just now joining us, we were lamenting the awful state of affairs that we find ourselves in through no fault of our own. We were playing the Desert Island Test (book, record, person) and figuring out how to play this for real. Unlike much of the world, our 'greed' as scientists is to scrabble for a bit more supplies, lab space and time on the FACS, not to enrich ourselves monetarily but with knowledge. We depend, however, on real money, and we are living in real fear that this will dry up in favor of rescuing banks and helping CEOs redecorate their offices (okay, I'll stop).So, surviving. Ah, ah, ah, ah, staying (oh, ick). How can we survive this mess? Grant money is plunging towards a historic low (based on my own history). I don't know about you, but here's what I'm going to do. Yes, this is Mole's Survival Guide and although I can't promise it will work (no survival guide makes such a promise, I'm afraid), it might be a place to start.Read. Read, read, read, read, read. And then read some more. Read everything in your field, then go read everything you can in your friends' fields. Be critical, but educate yourself. You will not survive if you persist in trying to answer questions that are not of fundamental importance, just because you can. Don't be redundant. (In the UK, I believe that 'redundant' is equivalent to 'retired'. Get it?) And listen. Attend seminars and talks, and take notes. And then – read your notes! (I mean professional, scientific seminars, not investment seminars – you do not have the time, money or chance to use the latter, but if you do, you shouldn't be listening to me.) Be a scholar. I am stunned by how often I attend such talks and see students, trainees and colleagues fiddling with text messaging instead of learning. But then, I'm probably more worried about survival than they are. Oh, and you know that book that you would bring to a desert island? Read that, too.Ask the important questions. Ambrose Bierce, a brilliant misanthrope of the 19th century, wrote a short parable that went something like this (I'm quoting from memory): "A fox, seeing a bunch of sour grapes hanging inches before his eyes, solemnly declared that they were out of his reach." Better and truer, perhaps, than Aesop or at least also true. Because although many of us can think of those tart, really good, but really challenging questions (especially since we've been doing all that reading), we decide we don't have the time, resources or abilities to go after them. But here's the thing: you can. That is, a) if you are very, very clever, which takes difficult (but free) thinking, and b) if you join forces with your friends. Which brings me to…Collaborate. Whatever you know, or know how to do, bring it to your neighbors. Seek opportunities to help them (and you) achieve the answers to the tough questions you are all hopefully asking and obtain their help in answering yours. We've talked about this before, but when times are really tough, we need to band together. Or perish. If you cannot convince anyone else that your questions are vital or that you can help in answering your colleagues' really important questions, you need to rethink where you are and what you're doing. All of this is part of your mission, which is to…Be essential. Long, long ago, before email (yes, there was such a time), I was a brand new assistant professor. My chair, old Professor Fruitbat, asked me to teach the first year med students, a job everyone else avoided (so he gave it to the new guy, of course). My friends strongly urged me to decline and, although I could have (because of my position), I didn't. Decline, that is. I taught the course and well (if I say so myself, but also I got awards – go figure) and in two years' time I was essential – nobody wanted to have to do this. Meanwhile, I worked very hard, collaborating and publishing as much as I could, and I was promoted in year three and again in year five. No, it wasn't only the teaching – my colleagues valued the collaborations and publications, my work on committees and in recruiting, and in the meantime I also managed to write a textbook, which also helped to tick off the 'essential' box. Yeh, it was really hard, but it's what we do. Really? It's all about energy – pick up the slack as much as you can and good things will probably happen. We're in survival mode; you need to use all your energy. Me, I'm terribly lazy, but maybe a bit less than some others and that's all it takes. But it will also help if you can…Be famous. Of course, I don't mean you should be famous famous. My dear mother has been known to chastise me with "If you're so famous, how come I haven't heard of you?" But you must do what you can do to be the signal, not the noise, and there is an awful lot of noise out there. Just last week, 7577 papers were published and, based on established statistical parameters (that is, what I once heard as a rumor), 3788.5 of these will never receive a single citation. Oscar Wilde (yes, he made an appearance last time for a reason) was famous as an undergraduate, long before he had published a single word. Despite Vacuum-Tube, Mind-Space and Face-Boot, and the Age of Fifteen Seconds of Fame, there are no famous undergraduates today. But in his time, O.W. was lampooned, caricatured, mocked and consequentially noticed. Your job is just that – to be noticed. You will have to work doubly hard to be informed (all that reading and teaching will pay off here) and be vocal at seminars, meetings and informal gatherings among your colleagues and peers. If you are the one asking the really informed and interesting questions, it's a start. Publish, talk, help, be useful. Find your niche and be the 'it'. Burn the midnight oil, write quality review articles, publish your lectures, practice thinking hard and then get out there. You can't be famous if nobody knows you're there. This is not the time to lay low and try to hide, hoping nobody will notice. I am regularly astonished how frequently I am asked to evaluate someone in my field for promotion and I find that I have no idea who they are, never paid attention to their work (probably my bad) and really have no opinion, despite the fact (if I do say so) that I am very expert in my field. Don't be this individual – science, as we know, is not for the timid.We are all in this together and not all of us will be here when that promised rescue ship appears. Those who survive will hone their skills and learn new ones, and science will shuffle on, if a bit slowly for a while. We'll find a way. I hope you make it. But I know I will, because I'm going to emulate Thomas Young, my erstwhile companion from the depths of history (who I brought to the desert island with my book of matches and my record album of 'A Mole-Family Holiday'). I told you last time that we'd come back to him.Thomas Young was arguably the last Renaissance person, back there in the 18th century. Physicists know him as the guy who explored the nature of light, performing the two-slit experiment that showed that light acts as a wave. Egyptologists know him as a major player in exploiting the Rosetta Stone to transform hieroglyphs into words. And we should all know him (although, admittedly, most don't) for his seminal work on the theoretical basis of life insurance, without which this rather useful thing might well not exist.I don't really hope to achieve anything like this remarkable polymath's contributions to knowledge, but I can aspire (and do) to learning as much as I can outside my immediate interests, in hopes that by reaching beyond the ordinary, I will be just barely extraordinary enough to survive. Yes, that's why Thomas Young is with me on my desert island and pretty useful he is. Oh, and he was a very skilled medical doctor, too. Which I'm not.But I'm funnier.