Here I am, minding my own business, looking at my local newspaper, and just reading what is happening locally. Then, out pops this profound quote of the week that is just gobsmacking.
The first line of the story starts out like this:
CHICO — A graduate student researching local rattlesnakes has something to prove, but he isn’t yet sure of what.
Sounds like some climate science RFC’s I’ve read. But wait, there’s more. Get a load of the punchline:
Like I said, gobsmacking. I have no desire to quash any study of rattlesnakes, but the sheer arrogance of the statement about publishing a scientific paper “even if it’s garbage” was just mind blowing. I hope Mr. Woodruff uses better judgement in the future. For now, I’ll just assign it to the youthful indiscretion file that I’m sure every one of us has.
Full story here.
I am reminded though, of the Seinfeld episode.
If he performs accurate original observational work on a distinctly different species population, whether he demonstrates commonality with or divergence from the venom compositions of the populations outside the area of isolation, that’s real science, larrygeiger to the contrary.
We may now reliably infer that however larrygeiger is educated and trained, it is not in either biology, biochemistry, toxicology, pharmacology, immunology, neurology, anesthesiology, or emergency medicine. The work of herpetologists studying venomous critters has led to saving beaucoup human lives.
This particular grad student’s present work may be of low value, but it will serve to incrementally improve the knowledge base about this species’ venom characteristics, and – in the bargain – it is from such biological substances that we have derived (and will continue to derive) diagnostic and therapeutic principals of use in the medical management of both human beings and valuable domesticated animals.
This quote is what I call “the stench of a paper mill.” AND it has infested much of the academic world:
http://depriest-mpu.blogspot.com/2008/03/stench-of-paper-mill.html
Agriculture has isolated the rattlesnakes here from others in the state, meaning it’s possible the snakes have adapted their venom to the area. At least, that might be something he proves with this study, he said.
Wow, (C)AGW is making evolution progress faster! Is there nothing it can’t do?
Heh. Isn’t a project supposed to have its objectives written out first, before data gathering starts? What kind of adviser would green light a project as vague as “studying the venom of Northern Pacific rattlesnakes”? After “21 2 months” into his study, he still can’t rattle off his objective off the top of his head?
What seems obvious is that Woodruff is going for the low-hanging fruit. Since that rattlesnake population has never been studied before, any new information is publishable.
I must agree with the minority of posters here on this one, i.e. that there is absolutely nothing wrong with what this kid is doing (apart from saying “garbage” rather than “uninteresting” or “inconclusive”). As some have pointed out, would it be better if he made a point of burying results which don’t support his hypothesis (for which he clearly has at least one candidate)?
I bit more reflection by some posters before , joining the jeers squad, might be advisable. Otherwise people might get the impression that said posters really have no idea what transparency in science entails.
It is difficult being a PhD student. He is under a lot of pressure to publish *something*… *anything*. It is a box that more or less must be ticked in order to get the PhD.
It is okay to tell someone, okay, here is some money, go and study those rattlesnakes and see what you can find out. Where it goes wrong is when he feels that he must publish *something*, *anything*, simply because that box must be ticked. It should be okay for him to write his thesis showing how he scientifically examined the snakes and found that there was nothing extraordinary about them. If he conducted the research to a high standard then that should be okay and he should be awarded the PhD.
Of course, if he can mention CO2 in a paper somewhere then no doubt he will get to travel around the world on jumbo jets presenting posters and short talks about it.
Isn’t that how James Hansen got the start to his career?
I agree with others on this thread that the student’s choice of words was unfortunate, i.e. by “garbage” he probably meant “negative results”. Nothing wrong with publishing negative results if they were rigorously (robustly?) attained (unless you want continued funding for the project, of course).
On the other hand the quote as published is quite striking and well worth mentioning on this blog as a good example of a bad scientific attitude (though not necessarily on the part of this particular student).
Liked the “Seinfeld” clip, too. 🙂
What he’s doing is the best kind of science, that of pure curiosity and discovery with no preconceptions of what the result should be. He just chose an unfortunate, if completely accurate, description of what the academic endgame requires him to do.
If he finds no detectable difference in venom, he publishes that. If he finds a difference, he says so. Fine, either way. Garbage, like the man says, but it’s good garbage. I just don’t want to see:
(1) “We must hurry and spend millions on further research before the new super-snake spreads to all of the US.”
(2) “We must hurry and declare the super-snakes an endangered species before they are wiped out by motorcyclists.”
And I especially don’t want to see the usual PC shibboleth:
(3) “These results do not mean that AGW is not taking place.”
Alan is right: He probably meant (we hope he meant) the hypothesis maybe garbage but the paper will be published even if the venom proteins are identical. The data needs to have integrity (can’t be garbage). Maybe he chose his words carelessly – or maybe the reporter takes poor notes.
From Chris Smith on July 19, 2011 at 7:41 pm:
Ack! Are you trying to scare this guy off from getting his next degree?
(bold added)
Going broke fast, practically zero funding, and nearly two years into a project towards just his Master’s degree. And you want to worry him with how bad it’ll be to go further and get a doctorate as well?
I think maybe you are taking his words the wrong way, or at worst there isn’t enough context to judge either way.
He may have been speaking very off the cuff and casually. If it is an unusual and unexplored area, then any honest research that demonstrates something, even if it is disproving a hypothesis, is an honest attempt at establishing knowledge and can be publishable depending on the merit and what’s involved. He probably meant that, but there’s no telling.
A good quote I’ve heard is “if you knew it would work beforehand, then it’s not real research”.
There was a time when this attitude would have been dealt with by peers. Either this guy has no peers in which case he is doomed to to this, his 15 minutes of fame, or his peers are imbeciles as is he and they are all doomed to ignominy. His will not be known as the greatest generation by any subsequent generations, and his efforts land him condemned as a fool by this one.
But what the hell, it’s a start.
“It is difficult being a PhD student. He is under a lot of pressure to publish *something*… *anything*. It is a box that more or less must be ticked in order to get the PhD.”
At Chris: Yes, yes. There is a considerable amount of “paper inflation”, because collaborators stick their names on projects even if they had only the loosest of involvement in a paper. The result is this standard that judges quantity over quality in papers that get published, which puts an immense pressure on a young PhD student, often prompting then to forego juicy but more challenging projects for something that can more easily payout in terms of a paper.
An important point to remember is that just because research is done at the university instead of the private sector doesn’t mean the profit motive is no longer involved. It is instead though a different kind of “profit” the university researcher has in mind, as the goal is publication in a journal, not commercially selling something. But similar to the private world, a project is often pursued based on the likelihood that it can payout for the time invested into it.
As a graduate student, I wrote an inconsequential thesis that was probably only read by my thesis adviser, so I wasn’t too critical of Woodruff until I read, “The nature of the small exploratory study means Woodruff doesn’t have much funding, he said.” Funding? What irritates me is that funding has become an expectation for a mere masters thesis.
Philip Peake says:
“Basically, he was taking a bunch of fluid mechanics equations and changing the coefficients so that the rock “flowed” over thousands/millions of years.
I could have knocked off that program in probably less than a week … ”
Big call there. He can also probably knock that program of relatively quickly (although not in a week, and I think anything dashed of by anyone in a week would be basically useless, much like a geomechanics model designed by a computer scientist with zero domain knowledge). I think you’ll find that most of that 3 years goes into researching what those pesky little coefficients are, and how they change over time with progressive deformation, in something modifying them to make them useful for something that flows like, well, a rock.
At least he’s honest, because that’s how things are. He must publish something whatever it is or he failed – and getting his grade is a priority, not scientific quality of the paper.
I’d blame the rules, not him.
quote: “So no matter what I do, even if it’s (garbage), it’s publishable”.
I see some here believe a non-conclusive result as meaning a “garbage” document.
I think he’s implying that he could “write” a garbage document.
“It is difficult being a PhD student. He is under a lot of pressure to publish *something*… *anything*. It is a box that more or less must be ticked in order to get the PhD.”
yup! – my daughter is doing post grad medicine and she says it doesn’t really matter what she presents so long as she presents something!!
A perfect trio of thesis advisors would be Michael, Gavin, and Ben.
(Ben because he’d beat up anyone in a dark alley who questioned the thesis)
Now, all he needs is an NSF grant. He can then prove that the rattlesnakes are different because of climate change.
Well, it seems like there is no other research in the area, so he could technically publish anything and build on the knowledge base. His wording was terrible and sounded incredibly cocky, which is a problem in the arena of perception. You know, that is somewhat reminiscent of climate science.
He’s young, give him a break. I wish I could only have had his level of stupidity when I was 25. In the end, it’s just a masters thesis which, at this level, should only be publishable if it is exceptional.
The fact that this young man is taking two years of (uncompleted) research to earn a masters degree says volumes about his university and about his advisers.
He just wants to play with (poisonous) snakes, second only to things that blow up.
That’s the wonderful thing about being on a scientific frontier – even lack of results are meaningful. A poor choice of words, but he has the right spirit.