Clarity

I have moved

2007-06-19T21:51:00.000-07:00

Over to The Ways and Means of the Immune System. I am divided no more, an immunology nerd and a postdoc am I. Thank you for reading, I hope you'll come by my new-ish digs for some immunology mixed in with rants.

Still looking for Clarity. Looking...

Gender Differences: Cultural Artifacts or not

2007-05-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

Another Friday, another Judith Warner column...It is however subscription only, so I have quoted relevant passages. She expresses exactly what i feel, so I will let her say it first.

I tend to believe that much (though not all) of what passes for gender difference is culturally encoded (if not determined) and brought out situationally. So I should have been prepared to find much commonality with Pollack, another narcissistic and self-indulgent writer-type; with Stracher, a lawyer, law professor and writer struggling with the personal and economic fallout of cutting back on work in order to make it home at least five nights a week to cook dinner for his kids; and to a lesser extent with Lerman, a much more testosterone-y kind of a character, who left a career in journalism and as the co-executive producer of “America’s Most Wanted” to stay home full-time with his preschool-aged son. They’d all rejected traditional fatherhood to become, in a certain sense, “moms.”

and

On the surface, this profound identification with the dads was vindicating: it validated what I’ve tried to say in the past – that men’s and women’s human similarities are far more meaningful and significant than their sex-specific differences...Yet on some other level it was vaguely troubling: Am I less a woman for finding the best depiction of how I experience myself as a mother in the voice of a dad? The words “Stockholm Syndrome” intruded upon my thoughts.

Seriously. I really do not believe in the idea that men and women are fundamentally emotionally different, a view typified in the vulgar extreme by "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus". I think that our emotional responses and general mental age and health are strongly conditioned by society, and as such, Society has different expectations of men and women. Society however is not entirely an independent entity, it is certainly a greater force than the sum of its parts, but it is ultimately made up of men and women. Ergo, men and women impose and propagate, or have imposed and have propagated, certain gender expectations that result in this artificial perception of deep-down-difference between men and women.

Some might say, probably rightly, that men did most of the original imposing, but women have had a share in the propagating and now we spend so much time and energy debunking unpleasant-and untrue- stereotypes. I do not know how or why these roles were allotted to the genders in the first place, there is any amount of tired, hackneyed, insightful, intelligent or just plain hokey literature out there that addresses the subject, and all of you are smart and erudite enough to know the speculations on the subject. Maybe because I am a biologist, I cannot understand the idea that men and women are deeply different. At all. We are all human (boo!) and most of the so-called gender-specific emotional differences can as easily be explained by cultural forces, nationality, education and even religion.

Classic "male" emotions? Competitiveness, aggression, directness, ambition, drive, being opinionated-I have just described the attributes almost every scientist I know. Male or female. Classic "female" emotions? Caring, empathy, nurture, gentleness, tolerance, love of gossip-I have described attributes of most of my friends, male or female, and of many of the important men in my life. Human emotions they all are, and all of us have felt them all in some degree or the other at some point in our lives. Understanding all these emotions is easy once they are placed in the realm of our own experience. Why then mystify the feeler of the emotion by filing them away under a gender stereotype?

Me? Harry?

2007-05-17T17:50:00.000-07:00

As seen at Propter Doc's

You scored as Harry Potter. You are Harry Potter. You are daring, and have quite a lot of nerve. You rely on your instincts to make decisions. You're a natural leader. You are highly concerned with justice and actively fight for what you feel is right.

Harry Potter

81%

Albus Dumbledore

78%

Neville Longbottom

72%

Hermione Granger

72%

Remus Lupin

72%

Bellatrix Lestrange

59%

Oliver Wood

56%

Severus Snape

53%

Luna Lovegood

50%

Sirius Black

41%

Ron Weasley

31%

Percy Weasley

31%

Lord Voldemort

31%

Draco Malfoy

28%

Harry Potter Character Combatibility Test
created with QuizFarm.com

Anonymity

2007-05-09T07:07:00.001-07:00

The paradox of anonymity is that you can be more yourself.

Anonymity enables us bloggers. Intimacy, truthfulness, genuine feeling, none of these would be possible without being anonymous. One expresses frustrations with lab, with particular people, one shares one's stories-be they funny, sad, outrageous or mundane. We all do these things under the comforting cover of anonymity. the first post about one's lab is made with trepidation, will someone see me? What if they find out? Then gradually, acquisition of a blog-persona emboldens you, you become Veo Claramente when you're typing, not Dr. Postdoc. You say the things that you have always thought and only told Postdoc Parents, Postdoc siblings, Mr. Postdoc-to-be or those always lovely and amazing Fellow Postdoc friends. Writing comes pouring out and suddenly people are reading! Someone comments, and you're on your way. You have this different life, almost, and you feel free to talk about the things that bother you. And then some.

Anonymity also shields some truly repellent people, who stalk and threaten. Trolls who lurk and comment. Malicious bloggers who use also their anonymity to liberate themselves, but to liberate their bad sides (maybe I shouldn't assume these people have good sides, but) and let it hang out in all its stinking glory. Freedom is universal after all, and can be used in any way. Your personal code is the only thing that prevents its misuse. The protection of anonymity is offered to everyone.

Here's the rub, It really bothers me that we should should we need it. The need to hide bad behaviour is obvious, the need to hide frustration less so. Why do we have to be careful about voicing our frustrations as long as we are reasonably polite and resort to only limited name-calling? Why is it that we face the possibility of reprisals for expressing opinions and telling it as we see it? I do have a quixotic sense of justice and what the world should be, but even so. Something is not right if so many people are out there, blogging about being grad students, postdocs or faculty, all staying anonymous and guarding that anonymity intensely. Hey, I'm not "coming out". I feel like I should be able to without the fear of destructive consequences. However, if I was guaranteed no bad consequences, would I turn Veo Claramente into a pseudonym? I don't know. My conscience and my sense of what is right would be satisfied, but I don't know if I want all the things I say to be attributable to me. I really don't know.

What would you do if you could out yourself without negative consequences?

scientiae-carnival

Lab Personalities I: the Alpha

2007-05-07T18:00:00.000-07:00

Lab personalities-I’ve been thinking about doing this series for a long time now. So much of the character of a lab and so many of the problems that beset researchers today are the result of various lab personalities. Outsize personalities and larger egos are not unique to academia, however they dominate academia in a truly unique way.

Appropriately enough, the first in the series, the Alpha. Pushy, confident, assertive and all-knowing, every lab has one. They always have an opinion about everything, they are absolutely sure that what they do is right and they are not shy about sharing their ways to improve you, your experiments and your future. They think nothing of charging past long-standing lab traditions to ensure that their way prevails. They always have a comment or seven at lab meeting. They know where everything is and like it that way. They define who is worthy of incorporation into the inner circle and who isn’t. They usually sit next to the boss at meetings and speak for him or her in their absence.

They are absolutely infuriating and usually quite indispensable. Their confidence is jarring yet enviable. Sometimes long-standing traditions should be done with and only alphas have the guts to do away with them. Comments make lab meeting interesting, and often, people participate when the Alpha’s comments rile them to the point of speech. It is useful to have one person who knows where everything is although one could do without the “I think the best way to use it is…”. Many of the worse clashes in labs develop because of them, as Alphas rarely conciliate, discuss or mediate. The misery levels of new members of the lab are largely governed by their reception by the Alpha, probably second only to the next personality I plan to discuss, the Escalator.

So with the Alphas, smile, ingratiate yes be firm for all Alphas yield to superior strength. Appreciate what they give to the lab, develop sudden deafness in the face of their opinions. And in the end, all of us have a little alpha in there somewhere. Some are more successful –and less abrasive- at letting it out that’s all. But, be warned, disaster might ensue if the PI is an Alpha and hires another.

So do you have a little Alpha in you? I would say I am about 10% Alpha….

The Colonial Hangover Persists...

2007-05-02T09:08:00.000-07:00

You Belong in the UK

Blimey!
A little proper, a little saucy.
You're so witty and charming...
No one notices your curry breath

What English Speaking Country Are You?

They didn't have cricket on the list!

Scientiae Carnival: 5th Edition

2007-05-01T12:59:00.001-07:00

Hello Everyone,

Sorry about the delay, but here it finally is, the 5th Edition of the Scientiae Carnival, the theme of which was, approximately, why and how do you labour at what you do. I have had a great time assembling this, though I am feeling tremendously guilty because I am doing this at work since I have no Internet at home. There might be something shadily appropriate about that given the theme and all, but.

Some of these posts were e-mailed to me, for which I thank you very very much! Others are the result of some intensive trawling, with happy happy results for my blog roll.

Propter Doc tells us here how she became a chemist and developed a healthy disrespect for authority, roughly at the same time. Doc-in-training tells us about how she loves what she does
Also, Jenny F. Scientist tells us about seeing Paul Nurse give a talk in which he told stories about how he did the research that would eventually get him a Nobel prize. Yes, Science Is Hard and needs a healthy dose of serendipity.

On a more introspective note, Jane is trying to figure out whether her job is worth it, and uses the analogy of a bad relationship to analyze her relationship to her job.Thoughtful and insightful, and something I am sure we all think about frequently. This is the first in what promises to be a really good series. Take a look.

All labour needs the leavening of leisure, and doc-in-training talks about the problems grad students face in their quest for leisure. She has a really useful pragmatic approach towards this.
A Female Scientist tries to keep her positive spin on life through a quarter life crisis

Some people address some of the more practical aspects of working: Science Woman has two great posts on taking her baby on a field trip and to a seminar, truly a labour of love. I consider the merits of greater professionalism and the folks at Fairer Science calculate how much more a woman has to work to earn the same amount as a man. Holly at field Notes of an Evolutionary Psychologist wonders how to get into a research network and Saxifraga at Rising to the Occasion discusses talking about science in the public.

Some discuss Ph.D. dissertations: A+ is not a "real" doctor, but has some interesting thoughts on how to write a dissertation at Ph.D. (People Have Doubts: Best title Ever!). Is fear motivation enough? Post-doc at Minor Revisions courageously shares the story of her thesis defense with us. I'm so impressed she continues to work in academia after this. Minor Revisions: Indefensible
Another interesting question: How much advising is too much?

Not women in Science, but great reading. Lou has some answers to the question of whether Ph.Ds are worth it. Derek discusses Doctorates and discontents

Looking for blogs from different sources, Nature has recently set up a networking site, and there a few blogs on it. Anna Kushnir has a fabulous blog on lab life. I haven't selected one particular post, I think the whole thing is great reading. Lab Life - Anna Kushnir's blog - blog on Nature Network

In other great news, FemaleScienceProfessor has been chosen as a Blog of Note-Yay! Congratulations. It's a fantastic blog and deserves the recognition.

And finally, Skookumchick has a suggestion for a Scientiae logo.

I really enjoyed doing this, I hope you enjoy reading it. The next edition will be at Science Woman's, coming out on the 15th. Happy blogging!

Scientiae Carnival Delayed Sorry!

2007-05-01T07:54:00.002-07:00

I have no Internet at home, so I am assembling this at work, between experiments, so sorry! It will be up by tonight.

My Visual DNA

2007-04-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

Okay I did it

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Call for posts Scientiae Carnival 5th Ed: Labour Day

2007-04-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

May Day is nearly upon us, and it's time for another edition of the Scientiae Carnival. May 1st is celebrated as Labour Day where I'm from, and probably where some others of you are from. So write on, is it a Labour of love that you perform. a labour of necessity or maybe of curiosity ? Do you labour on with joy or frustration, out of choice or out of boredom? Else ignore the meme and just write in. I, and many others, would love to read it.
Please send in your posts, by e-mailing them to scientiaecarnival@gmail.com and tagging them with a technorati tag. Detailed instructions are here.

Thanks!

More Carnivals: What's up PostDoc?

2007-04-24T09:34:00.000-07:00

The third edition is up at What's Up Postdoc?

Three cheers for Propter Doc!

Allowing Women to Work Makes Economic Sense

2007-04-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

A snippet from the Economist.

So women working is better for the economy and for society and it does not lead to lower fertility rates. Woo! Why this obsession with finding empirical reasons for why it is good for women to work? Women are humans, individuals, not a separate sub-species on which data has to be collected to make the case for "allowing" them to work. I'm always torn by these statistics, on the one hand they are reassuring, on the other hand they are insulting by implication. Yay, it makes economic sense for me to work, I say clapping my dainty little hands and skipping joyously. Now I shall work. Whatever.

To be fair though, I do think that the Economist publishes these articles in an effort to debunk stereotypes against women in the workplace. I just have this visceral reaction against such statistic-ification of something I think is as natural and necessary as, say, men working.

Okay end of rant.

Professionalism or the Lack Thereof

2007-04-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

One of the things that bothers me the most about the scientific establishment these days is the pervasive lack of professionalism I see at every level. From department heads and PIs to postdocs, lab managers and lab technicians. The only people who might be excused for not having learnt some professionalism are early grad students, but as they move onwards through grad school it should really be something they learn. Given the nature of many labs today though, they are not going to learn the value of being professional and will go on to be unprofessional postdocs, then PIs, then department heads.

What do I mean when I say professionalism? I mean that you have a job, therefore do your job, whinge if you will but do not make a career out of emotion and insularity. One's boss does not have to be one's friend. Their moods should not be a cause of great concern to their employees. Tantrums, hissy fits, concealment, bitching, sabotage, paranoid delusions, prestige issues, ego hassles, ignorance and just plain idiocy shouldn't have to be a normal part of one's day. I don't claim these as problems unique to a laboratory setting, I am sure these issues affect many workers in many walks of life (I know they affect publishers and engineers for example). But am I wrong in thinking that these problems are overrepresented in academic research settings?

Research is a hard job, it is completely self-driven, there are no benchmarks, no signposts that mark significant achievements other than peer-reviewed publications that go through an incredibly subjective evaluation process. You don't get much pay, praise or publicity. You work on an arcane subject in dimly-lit surroundings (maybe not always) and set yourself up for pillory by your peers every so often. Maybe 0.1% of us will find a cure for AIDS. Or even discover what AIDS is. I don't, however, think that the difficulty of what we do makes a lack of professionalism okay.

In fact being a professional would make life easier, at least it would according to me. Detachment from drama, perspective about achievement, calm in the workplace, hell, I want all these things! I am a better scientist when I don't want to curl up in a ball of stress every time I sit down at my desk. The experiment didn't work? Oh well, troubleshoot it and do it again. It did? Awesome, go get a drink. It's a job, life goes on. The boss didn't say hello? Forget it, as long as he or she discusses your data with you constructively and with an open mind. Go in, do your job, make some friends as a bonus, leave at the end of the day, go on with your life. Courtesy and respect (Propter Doc has put this very well) should be the cornerstones of the lab not precedence and credit-mongering. I don't know how we came to be a generation of scientists and mentors who are so caught up in the cult of scientific personality that an egregious tyrant with Cell papers in their CV is worshiped while a fair-minded collaborative mentor with less famous papers is followed by condescension and pitying whispers. It saddens me.

I really believe that increased professionalism, which also involves better treatment of employees and better compensation of exceptional talent, is the only way to better research. The question is, is unprofessional behaviour too institutionalized to root out? I don't know. What do you think?

Corollary to Verbal Inconsistencies

2007-04-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

So Russell Simmons wants to ban certain epithets from hip-hop music.

Ah censorship. I detest those words, but if the thought exists, and not only exists but prevails, can you stop the mindset by stomping out the word?

Don't know...

Verbal Inconsistencies

2007-04-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was listening to the song "Boyz in the Hood" by Dynamite Hack (In my opinion, the Red Hot Chili Peppers of this decade, but...) on the radio. If you've heard the song, you will know that the lyrics contain profanity.

Of which the word sh*t was bleeped out every single time, but the words p*mp, ho, b*tch were left there in their profane glory. I am no prude, in fact I strongly believe in the redemptive powers of a good long cuss, especially when the experiment didn't work. (The reason these words are coyly asterisked is that I do NOT want anyone searching for profanity and finding my blog. I'm sure there are a 100,000 hits before mine, but I don't want there to be even a 1 in 100,000 chance). It never fails to get me, how a word that refers, albeit crudely, to an essential bodily function is unfailingly deleted from broadcasts, but pejorative references to women are sounded in their glory. I'm not in favour of excessive censorship and I do not want any of the aforementioned words to be removed from broadcasts, I just find it outrageous that words like p*mp, ho and b*tch are acceptable, even essential features of modern pop culture but words like sh*t or the venerable, almost quaint f*ck are assiduously screened out.

F*cking A! (Sorry those of you who disapprove of cussing)

Why do I write this?

2007-04-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

The simple one word gut reaction answer: Perspective. I read what I have written and am horrified by the bitterness, shocked by the spleen and ashamed of the whining. Then I feel better. Or I record the good times so that I remember that I did enjoy myself as well. Better yet, thinking about what to write helps me understand the things I am feeling and brings thoughts to the surface that I never even knew were lurking. It has been really good for me to put my thoughts down, to be organized, and to try and articulate the jumble of observations, instincts and hit-or-miss insight that make up my mind. It has been so reassuring and so heartening to read about all those other women, and men, out there who think about these things, write about them and share some really interesting ideas.

Another reason that has recently made the list, surfacing through the murky depths by the aforementioned process is this. I have moved to a different country, done rotations, done a Ph.D., started a post-doc and am in the process of figuring that particular stage out. I think I have realized and understood all these things that I want to tell other people who are starting down this perilous road, but how does one? If you're anything like me, you're probably not going to want to hear it, you want to live it and figure it out. And that is the way it should be. So I decided to just write about the things I see and the things I think, and occasionally about the science I love (but that's another blog). I figure, if you want to read it, I'll be honoured. And maybe the snapshots from my life will seem like something you're going through and maybe it will help, as it helps me every day, to know that other people are slogging through the same stuff. It's really not just you.

How does one ever say these things in person, or socially, unless it's to a really close friend? I feel embarrassed, soppy even. Know-it-all at worst, sentimental at best. So I take refuge in anonymity and write. I take deep refuge in anonymity and vent some of my frustrations with the people I work with because I cannot tell them they are jackasses to their face. And I try and acknowledge all those people who make it worth it, because it isn't all bad. Being a postdoc has ups and downs and roundabouts but a surprising number of people persist. This persistence is one of the reasons the system gets away with being the system, but more on that another day. We still do Ph.D.s and ruin our arms doing lab work, and as long as there is beer and there are pipettes, postdocs will continue to work. Hopefully, eventually under better conditions.

And that brings me to the third reason: the community. We are a community unlike others I belong to, united by intelligence, drive and discontent. We are close-knit because we are so alien and unfamiliar to mainstream society, not many people know what a postdoc let alone what it entails. We are bright enough to know we deserve better treatment, but we work on despite that in a quixotic quest for something-defining knowledge, overwhelming idealism, fame, glory, a Nobel prize or the cure for AIDS. I love writing this because I feel like I speak to a community, and hopefully, by trying to articulate what one may not be able to, occasionally speak for that community.

postdoc carnival

I'm a Happy Postdoc...At Least This Week

2007-04-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

I started writing this last week, so the title should actually read last week, but since there is still some residual happiness, the title stands.

The experiment worked!!!!! It worked!!! The one that really sets up the whole project, the one that indicates that I just may be on the right track...that one worked! I may yet be wrong, and hundreds of controls and repeats have yet to be done, but it worked! (Mad happy dancing) That's the feeling, that's the feeling I work for. That is why I do research. That is why I worked hard, that is why I swallowed disappointment after disappointment and kept on plodding. It's a great feeling.

It's an ephemeral one. It will last till the next one doesn't work. Or, the next experiment will work and the next and the paper will go out. Then the happiness dulls or is replaced by other happinesses-it had better, otherwise you're the person who is always talking about "My Science paper.." (I don't have one, I'm just saying). The happiness can make you drunk with success and eventually flushed with arrogance. Or it will fade leaving something worse, the memory of exhilaration. Or, if you're really lucky and balanced, it will even out into something you can sustain in the longer term. However, if you're lucky and balanced, you wouldn't care so much that results would exhilarate you...and so on.

Is it worth it, to work for such transient highs and more persistent lows? I don't have the energy to sustain such high ups and such low downs for so many years. Soaring is great, crashing sucks and repeating the cycle is even worse. Or am I one of the less common hyper-emotional ones who is far too affected by her work? It is not because I am a woman, in fact the most emotional scientists I have met were men, but I digress into trivializations. Do I want to work for those elusive high moments? Do I want to deal with all the pits and self-doubt? To borrow from Rusted Root, am I hooked on a feeling? Am I high on believing that I will succeed? Do I need to be that way to be a successful scientist?

Don't really know, and dude, when the experiment works I don't know if I really care to think about it. Doubts can wait.

"I can't stop this feeling
Deep inside of me..
....
I'm hooked on a feeling
I am high on believing.."

-Rusted Root, The Ooga Chaga song, adapted to Postdoc-hood

Third Scientiae Carnival is up

2007-04-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

For those of you who would like to read articles of, by or about women in science technology and engineering.
At LabCat's. Enjoy!

An article from The Economist about America and Immigration

2007-03-22T10:57:00.000-07:00

I thought this was a really fantastic article, in this week's issue of the Economist. I think it is actually available to read without a subscription.

This struck so many chords with me, as someone who has waited endlessly for a piece of paper, who has been greeted by rudeness at every re-entry post and has decided that it is not worth it to let one's life be ruled by forms, bureaucracy and more pieces of paper.

I am very grateful indeed for the opportunities that America has provided me, I have realy enjoyed living here, still do. But I don't want to put up with the hassles of being an immigrant any more, and am therefore seriously considering moving back to my dear chaotic country and hacking my way through life there.

My favourite parts, quoted:

A country that has been built on immigrant labour is now building fences and demonising foreigners, almost as if it did not need them.

and

There are still good reasons for immigrants to put themselves through all this. America has the world's greatest universities and biggest opportunities for the truly talented. But American officialdom needs to stop thinking that people will tolerate any humiliation to work there. Uprooting yourself from your native culture is difficult enough, without having to deal with unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles. America also needs to realise what will happen if the immigrants stop coming. University departments will grind to a halt. High-tech companies will be starved of personnel. New York could find itself eclipsed by London as the world's financial hub.

On Race and Being a Scientist

2007-03-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

Skookumchick over at Rants of a Feminist Engineer had posted on the subject of race in science. Taking my cue from her, here I go.

I have to say that because of my nationality, race and nationality are rather inextricably linked in my thinking, so I will declare right now that I use the two to refer to the same thing. Sorry.

I am Indian, as may have become obvious to those of you who read my blog and notice my stubborn use of -ou- spelling. I grew up in India and came to the US to do my Ph.D., not I am a post-doc. I've been a foreign student, a non-resident alien, then a resident alien and now am a temporary worker.

There are so many stereotypes associated with various races and their work ethic/abilities/social skills. I'm not trying to offend anyone, but here's a list of some I have heard: Indians are bright and lazy, lack social skills and speak English with a funny accent; Chinese people are incredibly hard-working, paranoid and competitive and do not speak English well at all; Japanese people are eternally polite to your face but do exactly whatever they please anyway, the French are clubby and snobbish, the Germans are correct, humorless and boring, Americans are crazy workaholics with an alien literal sense of humour.

My accent in English could easily be American, in fact I get judged for that quite a lot in the Indian community. One of the two most paranoid, competitive people I have met was indeed Chinese, the other was American. However, the single most helpful technician I have ever known is Chinese, she is a darling. Two of the most intelligent-and yes, sarcastic- people I know are American and I enjoy and respect their insights and judgment tremendously. One of my dearest mentors in grad school was Japanese and he was always communicative and sharing with me. Many of my friends and my best colleagues have been, and are, French. Based on friends again, I think Germans are the most modest, open-minded people I know and amazing friends in the bargain.

I think that it is important to discuss issues of race and representation but one always risks falling into the trap of letting stereotypes do the deciding. However hard one tries, if one makes race a central issue one will end up classifying people one meets based on one's perception of their countrymen's qualities. If one is luckky and honest, one may overcome these stereotypes and make real connections to people despite all, but how often is one lucky or honest?

I resist concentrating on race for many reasons, a big one, and possibly an ignoble one, is because I do not want to be associated with the stereotype. I have known incredibly lazy Indian people, I have also had Indian colleagues who shamelessly made use of a boss's niceness and took way too much advantage. I am not like that, and it galls me no end to have colleagues who "have given my countrymen a bad name". I have also met hard-wroking like-minded Indians whom it is a privilege to associate myself with. However, I do not speak to Indians at work in our native tongue, if it is the same, or the national language because I think it is wholly inappropriate to use a language that other people do not understand in a workplace. It makes people hostile, which is completely understandable. Over coffee, I'd love to gab in Hindi, but in lab? No. I won't do it.

I resist emphasizing my race for another reason: I have worked so hard to be thought of as "just" a scientist, not an "Indian scientist", or the "Indian girl in that lab". People have actually called me by another, very different, name because there was another Indian in our lab with that name. The foreign student, the foreign post-doc...I think I have managed to shed all these labels, not because I am not proud of being Indian or because I am embarrassed to be considered foreign, but because I want to be thought of primarily as a scientist. I don't want Indian to be my defining professional label, just like woman is not my primary label of choice, more on that later. I feel that as a foreign post-doc, race and nationality are such dominant issues in the rest of my life- getting fingerprinted upon entry into the US, needing authorization to travel, my boyfriend shaving off his beard because he is Indian and will probably have trouble flying with a beard because of what he looks like. I don't want my race or nationality to be a central issue in my professional life as well.

I am joyously Indian and fiercely proud to be so. I am also a scientist and proud of that. I am not necessarily an Indian scientist is all.

scientiae-carnival

Second Scientiae Carnival

2007-03-16T11:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the day's delay, the second Scientiae carnival is up at Propter Doc's. More on Science, Women and other things. Some great reading, enjoy!

The Appearance of Femininity: A Crock!

2007-03-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

Judith Warner, one of my favourite columnists at the New York Times has posted this incredible column today on Times Select. (Needs a subscription)
It's about how Hillary Clinton might lose out on female votes because her appearance of femininity is less than sympathetic. The word Ms. Warner uses to describe the quality she lacks is "schmaltz", it's perfect. She really gets it right, with her oh-so-well done send up of the desired image of women in politics. Seriously, this is one thing that really bothers me: many women in positions of power take flak for being "manly" or aggressive, but if they were charming and feminine they take flak for milking their femininity. Personally, the latter bother me more, more on that later!

Why should Senator Clinton have to coo and cry? She should be judged on her capability and her political skills, which are considerable. I'm not saying she is perfect or should have a free run for President, in fact I cannot vote in American elections and on principle am uncomfortable about participating in public political discussions. This though, is more universal. Why is there this requirement for softness and empathy from female politicians more than male? And when softness and empathy, and tears! good lord tears! come through, the women is seen as a good woman but not good enough to be Commander in Chief. It's ridiculous.

Does Your Motivation Make You a Better Scientist?

2007-03-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

This post is inspired by an article in the New York Times Magazine on Sunday the 4th of March. The article was about the evolution of God, and there were many things about the article that drove me nuts, but I'm only going to mention one them here, one that inspired this post.

The author of the article, in the process of analyzing the evolutionary imperative for the existence of religion and God, quotes a scientist named David Sloan Wilson, an "adaptationist", citing his work for one side of her argument. Whether I agree with him or not is immaterial, I found this paragraph, directly quoted in Robin Marantz Henig's own words, really disturbing.

"Wilson’s father was Sloan Wilson, author of “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,” an emblem of mid-’50s suburban anomie that was turned into a film starring Gregory Peck. Sloan Wilson became a celebrity, with young women asking for his autograph, especially after his next novel, “A Summer Place,” became another blockbuster movie. The son grew up wanting to do something to make his famous father proud.

“I knew I couldn’t be a novelist,” said Wilson, who crackled with intensity during a telephone interview, “so I chose something as far as possible from literature — I chose science.” He is disarmingly honest about what motivated him: “I was very ambitious, and I wanted to make a mark.” He chose to study human evolution, he said, in part because he had some of his father’s literary leanings and the field required a novelist’s attention to human motivations, struggles and alliances — as well as a novelist’s flair for narrative."

Maybe I am being unreasonable, but I find it very hard to believe on someones science when their motivation is that they wanted to be famous because their father was. I mean no personal disrespect to the Dr. Wilson in the article, maybe I misunderstand what the author was trying to represent about him. In any case, the issue still stands, does one's motivations for doing science colour one's science?

There are many many reasons why one chooses to do research, a keenly developed sense of curiosity, idealism, wanting to contribute to the world, even lack of other options, which happens oftener than one would like to believe. And of course, motivations change as one's thinking evolves, as one grows up. Idealism becomes less important, the need for a secure job kicks in, pragmatism trumps curiosity in one's choices of projects etc. If fame and success is one's primary imperative though, doesn't that lead one down a road of great pressure and even greater disappointment? Does one pick projects simply because they will get one attention? Does one feel greater temptation to wrongly interpret or over-interpret one's data if the perception of eventual success is the primary driving force?

Allegra Goodman has written a phenomenal book "Intuition", sort of on the subject of what drives scientists to do the things they do and how pressure and success can tempt the most high-minded scientist away from their usual code of research. I am aware that no one really does science mainly for the good of the human race or the purity of thought involved in solely intellectual pursuits (Of course I do, but... :) ) and that idealism rarely has a place in the rat race of research today. However I cannot believe it is good for the scientific establishment as a whole if our only motivation to do science was glory and success, sweet as they may be, in fact I think that would be really dangerous.

What do you think? Am I just over-reacting?

scientiae-carnival

Raindrops on Roses...

2007-03-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

Here are my answers to five questions from Propter Doc.

1. What is the best part of being a postdoc?

When you design an experiment in grad school, you either present it in lab meeting as future directions or you do it and then present the results. It gets ripped apart, gently for the most part during my Ph.D. experience. Holes, missing controls, problems, inconsistencies etc. Now, when I design an experiment, I can often see what's wrong with withing half an hour of staring at the layout. I find the holes, I can anticipate the missing controls. The flip side of course is the the endless circle of caveat one finds oneself in, as no experiment in ever perfect theoretically and one eventually just has to do it and find out. But its a nice feeling to have acquired a skill like that, albeit a skill that only a few people can understand and appreciate.

2. What makes you happy?

India, food and happy plants. In no particular order. Green leaves, the smell of onions in oil just warming up, warm bread, crowds of people in the street, warm sunny mornings when the light pours in through every window by 6.30 am, old shady dusty trees, stray dogs of every shape size and colour and food everywhere!

3. What do you miss most about being a child?

The way time stretched out indefinitely and moved so slowly. It was intensely aggravating while a child, but I miss that now in the middle of harried days and "Oh my God, I can't believe it's already March" moments. I would love to have back that sense of time as a vast space, so big and endless and comforting.

4. What is your favorite book and why?

Oh no, I dread this question! How can one have only one? I always answer favourite book/song/movie questions with top ten lists. Sigh, anyway, shall try to narrow it down.
Thinks. thinks. Whirls. One always wishes the answer to this question to be profound and true and perfectly calibrated so as to reveal your soul and the exact degree of depth and sensitivity that abides there. Anyway.
Cliched as it is, I would have to go with Pride and Prejudice. I read it every six months. I read it when I am homesick or unhappy, it makes me feel better. I read it just because I feel like. I take it everywhere, in fact I believe I own three copies in three different locations around the world. I made the Boy read it. It's an old friend by this time.

5. If you weren't a scientist, what would you be?

I would be a writer and working for an NGO dealing with public health issues, that's what I would be doing. Which is not yet out of the question, but depends on luck and ability :). I applied for science writing jobs right out of grad school and was told that post-doc experience was required and most NGOs want M.D.s. All shall accomplished however, with persistence and faith!

Oh that was fun, thank you Propter Doc! If anyone else wants questions, do comment and I'll send you some.

Abolish Tenure?

2007-03-07T09:19:00.000-08:00

Just read this through a link on Uncertain Principles' blog at ScienceBlogs. Steven Levitt, famous for "Freakonomics" proposes the abolition of tenure on his blog on the grounds of it being an economically unsound idea. What do you think?

I agree with one of the commenters on Levitt's blog, that one does need breathing room to let a project come to fruition, especially in the life sciences. Is competition and competitiveness everything? But there are so many new Ph.D.s who want jobs! How do you accommodate them all?