Researchers, especially the ones with a Dr. in front of the name, or a Ph.D trailing after their name, or worse (or even better?) a Dr. in front of their name and a Ph.D trailing after their name, or, the ultimate, a Dr. in front of their name, a Ph.D trailing after their name and a title like Albert E. Linnaeus Professor of the School of Engineering, have big egos.
And, it is a fact that a graduate student can prove no theory quicker than he could prove that when two such researchers get together, no conference room is large enough to hold both their egos. It doesn't matter if they are working on exactly the same problem, using the same approaches, and refer to the same set of literature references in all their papers (in the Previous Work section), each would still have nothing but scorn for the other person's approach, mainly because it deviates from their own approach by a trifling detail.
The numerical simulations guys are only too familiar with this, "His research is worthless, he has no understanding of the empirical model. He uses α=0.3756 ×10-6, when clearly everyone knows it is 0.3782 ×10-6. How can you trust a research like that?" And who can forget the experimentalists' opinion, "Clearly everyone knows that you cannot get any reliable data when you conduct measurements at 10 microns resolution, you need at least 1 micron resolution, that is why we got this fancy new equipment. And don't even get me started on his curve-fit approach. The error bars are all over the place."
From there on, it just gets worse as you move further up the spectrum, computational simulation guys vs. experimentalists, engineers vs. scientists, economists vs. science folk, etc. They all sincerely believe that their field is the most complicated and that others can never fathom the intricacies involved, whereas they inherently have a better understanding of the other's field mainly because it is simpler than their own.
Personally, I feel that my own field was so mind-boggling-ly simple that I feel that my PhD degree was a steal, and I wake up in the nights with scary dreams of how an angry horde of professors discovering how I'd duped them came crashing down on my house for revenge. I've often wondered, how people achieve this sense of accomplishment and a feeling that their PhD is worth something. I mean don't they just beat out all sense of self-worth during your PhD? How does it grow back? My theory is that professors (well, as with every theory it only works on a finite sample set of cases and has more exceptions to the rule), at least, build it back up by breaking the spirits of their graduate students.
Anyway, leaving my morbid dreams aside for the moment, and returning to the topic, it is always amusing to be a part of this clash of egos, assuming that you are watching it from a distance and never have to take sides or chip in with your opinion. The argument never ends, each party tries to act sympathetic to other's inability to fathom the depth and complexity of their research. Different tactics are employed: "Because of your experience in your field/approach, you are making assumptions which just cannot be made in our field/approach. These things have distinct meanings, which you'll never understand even if I explain it.", or "You know you are complicating things far more than necessary. But I guess that is the inherent nature of your field/approach, and you are struggling to get our way of thinking/approaching the subject matter.", or when one suddenly realizes that the other person just stated their life's work in a much more clear, concise manner than they'd ever been able to, "Well, you are almost there, there are some nuances which you are obviously missing. But, of course, we cannot expect you to know them. So let us just move on for the sake of time. We've only booked this conference room for another hour you know."
The only happy coexistence between two researchers is when there is a master-slave err... I mean master-subordinate relationship. Once the pecking order is established, nothing paints a more harmonious picture than a research lab. Approximations of this peaceful coexistence can be found in situations when one controls the funding that the other desperately needs to survive. On the surface, they paint a picture of serene calm, but in private this situation makes for the best drama. Too bad, they don't have reality shows about PhD nerds. I'd watch that. Oh wait, PhD comics is a pretty good approximation of that. Damn, and I thought I'd a million-dollar idea. Oh well, back to research then.
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2 comments:
As a close witness of your PhD, I can assure the world that it was not easy and it was very much deserved. Mine is much simpler, but I think I deserve it, if not for the quality, for the amount of suffering they have inflicted on my poor self ;)
Just last night I could see some of that clash of egos on TV on a show about Global Warming, but taking the side that it is not human-caused, but natural. Several researchers, mostly Americans, exposed their discoveries to justify that CO2 has nothing to do with it. Their arrogance, their sense of superiority, their disdain of the opositve side... it was just laughable. While some of the scientific reasoning was very interesting, like the sun spots having an effect on the cloud formation and on the earth temperature, their refusal to accept that theirs is not the only effect, but just part of the major equation, was disgusting.
And sadly, their attitude, the air about them... was just too familiar.
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