What Does This Generation Think it Means to be a “Scientist”?
Changing Definitions Could Entail a Changing Relationship Between Science and Society.
SOURCE: AP/MICHAEL DWYER
Many students don't see a life of academic specialization as the best way to employ their scientific talents. They want to do something more, to bring science to the rest of America. Above: a Boston Museum of Science employee and a student examine the Body Worlds 2 exhibition.
Print
If there’s one thing you ought to be reading in relation to science this week, let me suggest it’s Bruce Alberts’ extremely important recent editorial in Science about the changing career trajectories of young researchers. Alberts, a Science Progress advisory board member, provides data to back up something that has struck me anecdotally on many visits to college campuses—namely, hordes of young scientists today don’t seem to want to follow in the footsteps of their professors. They’re blazing a different path. As Alberts writes:
Science, Cultured
Science Progress contributing editor Chris Mooney surveys the interactions between science, politics, and culture. He is the author of several books, including The Republican War on Science and the forthcoming Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. He and Kirshenbaum blog at “The Intersection.” (Photo: flickr.com/sarahfelicity)
A recent survey of more than 1000 of these young scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), reveals an unusually broad range of career aspirations. Less than half select becoming academic researchers like their mentors as their first choice. One senses that we are reaching a tipping point, where students who prefer to work in the world of public policy, government, precollege education, industry, or law will no longer be viewed as deserting science. Faculty and students can then begin to talk honestly about a whole range of respected, science-related career possibilities. This is crucial, because we must promote the movement of scientists into many occupations and environments if our end goal is to effectively apply science and its values to solving global problems. [Italics added]
This paragraph resonates for me in part because I collaborate with a young scientist who epitomizes the trend Alberts highlights—my co-blogger Sheril Kirshenbaum. She has two MS degrees, but decided to go work on Capitol Hill, in pop radio, and now in journalism and communication, rather than getting her Ph.D.
What’s refreshing about Alberts’ editorial is that, no academic traditionalist, he isn’t objecting to or lamenting this career diversification trend. Rather, he’s celebrating and encouraging it. He’s glad we have more scientists out there like Kirshenbaum—and why?
Because such forsaking of the traditional academic path has the potential to greatly increase the points of contact between science and the rest of our society, to break down walls between the mythic “ivory tower” and the no less mythic “main street.” Alberts even calls for scientific training to “provide our students with the additional skills they will need to be successful as they interface with other professions.” Hear hear!
In this sense, Alberts’ editorial links closely to another recent one in Science—this time by Christopher Reddy of the Woods Hole Research Center—arguing that we must train today’s young scientists to deal with the modern media and to excel in communication. There’s a central overlap here: Those young scientists who forsake the traditional academic career path are very likely to find themselves in fields where “soft skills” such as writing and communication will be valued at a premium.
I agree with Alberts that there appears to be a paradigm shift out there, a generational change in the science world. It’s not merely that science grad students and postdocs don’t want to grow up to become their professors or advisers; it’s also that in many cases, they simply can’t. The academic opportunities just aren’t there; there has been a marked constriction of opportunity in the ivory towers. Furthermore, many students don’t see a life of academic specialization as the best way to employ their scientific talents. They recognize that specialization’s disadvantages go hand in hand with its advantages. They want to do something more, to bring science to the rest of America.
And America needs them.
Now, the critical step will be to ensure that such students aren’t punished for their unorthodox choices, but rather, that such choices open up a whole new field of opportunity to them. I don’t think there’s much worry about not having enough bench scientists; as already noted, the competition for those academic jobs is intense and there are far more young scientists out there than positions. But let’s make sure that we are also creating opportunities for this new generation of scientific innovators that Alberts highlights—if we channel their impulses in the right direction, the dividends will be enormous, not just for science but for all of our society.
Chris Mooney is contributing editor to Science Progress and author of several books, including The Republican War on Science and the forthcoming Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. He and Kirshenbaum blog at “The Intersection.”
Comments on this article
Time warp time. The job opportunities in the ivory towers plummeted not recently, but about 20 years ago. This followed a decade of newspaper stories about the ‘desperate looming shortage of scientists’. The pursuit of jobs outside academia was forced upon that generation of graduates. It was also something the previous decade of reporting and their advisers (generally) left them unprepared to do.
Today, the difference is not that graduates are looking at getting jobs and doing things outside academia, but that finally some of their professors are telling students that they’re not failures if they don’t get jobs in academia. That ’some’ being mostly those faculty who graduated in the last 20 years. With the enormous decline in tenure which attended that shift, it’s a smaller minority than previously.
April 8th, 2009 at 8:07 pmScientists are those bold explorers of what remains unknown. They push light and resources to expand the horizons of societal ability and knowledge in a vast array of disciplines.
What remains at the center? What are they leaving behind? Research on the cutting edge may/will have incredible benefits for a told few of the worlds population. When do we the beacon inward and evaluate the most basic needs of any society? I am drawn to the edge by my curiosity. But my compassion turns my head. When people struggle to find clean water, while others pop pills directing the flow of their blood as a means for personal pleasure, it is difficult to continue looking outward. When the greatest health concerns for the worlds citizens stem from both overeating and starvation, I am torn.
We must be aware of our environment, if we forget the issues the humble beginnings of science first sought to address, we may tear our population to pieces. Consider nuclear power and nuclear weapons, political clout can be measured by the possession of these tools of technology which create an incredible divide while depending on the greatest trust.
April 9th, 2009 at 1:05 pmIt’s a terrific trend to be welcomed and celebrated. Sad fact is, those students will be punished, BUT not so badly they can’t take it. I got sneered at when I stopped practicing law to do more interesting things. The implication was, “What’s the matter, couldn’t you hack it?” Scientists stepping out of academia will likely get the same. But now that many attorneys get the training but aren’t “practicing,” it’s viewed as a good thing!
Now that I’ve started an organization to promote science, I sense similar condescension from some in academia because I don’t have a PhD. It’s annoying/frustrating and makes me have to work harder, but it’s not devastating. The pioneering scientists will find the same. The minor pain is soothed by the realization that those slinging the arrows simply don’t have the talent to step out of their boxes (or ivory towers).
April 9th, 2009 at 6:51 pmScience, to me, means knowledge derived from Principles.
Our culture promotes not Principles and logic but emotions, sensitivity and spontaneity instead of learning and logic.
There is no choice, we must shift from moods to logic or we will go the way Athens, a has-been nation. Not everyone, but salaries must entice people right here or the jobs will be filled with people with foreign accents and funny names -like me. We only need to make it clear and Pres. Obama can change it into an effective speech, he would deliver best.
April 11th, 2009 at 1:09 am“Now, the critical step will be to ensure that such students aren’t punished for their unorthodox choices, but rather, that such choices open up a whole new field of opportunity to them”
In terms of the culture of science, not becoming what you are socialized to become is a failure. So that ship has already sailed, because one feels like a failure after investing years of effort and not reaching that goal. But that doesn’t mean everyone should keep chasing the future of a researcher and active scientist (leaving aside the massive argument about whether someone not doing science is a scientist, a question I don’t have a clear answer for).
The question is, what do you do with yourself afterward. I’m working on answering that one myself.
April 11th, 2009 at 2:16 amI believe bad economy is one thing that is also shaping the future of today’s scientists.
April 12th, 2009 at 1:49 pmFor all the classical problems we have now, we need more scientists to be generous than focus on landing in an academic career..
What has now become “scientific” is often a descripiton of a computer program.
But, what about Biology and Medicine? Do we know the Principles? Is it all “cut and try” and if the patient seems to get better, put the pill in the market and call it The Latest in Medical Science!
Take “Stem Cell” reserach, that gave us the mouse with an ear on its back, is that research?
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:59 pmDo we know how any stem cells operates? What makes provide a cure.
Whatever happend to the Personal DNA Medicines?
As the number of drugs increases exponentially, we have no clue of their benefit, if any, until after it is tried, by itself. Bu, what about patients that are already taking a “drug cocktail” of 8 drugs? Etc.?