Today I want to take a look close to home. As a scientist, and as a marine ecologist I think I have chosen a career path that is quite ‘sustainable’ - doing things for the greater good. Sometimes I still think that one day I am going to change the world..... but really, is science all for the greater goods? And could we do it better? I have been thinking a lot about this lately , there is so much repeating , everyone so close and attached to their little experiment (or model) , afraid to let go and yet simultaneously trying to find the bigger picture in order to get their science published in some high impact journal.. I assume the scientists amongst my readers are probably nodding , while I might have lost some of you already.. High impact journals? Science published ? Experiments ? Models? (No, not talking about the likes of Naomi Campbell here, but more like those scary climate predictions...). To summarise quickly for the non-academic out there in order to make it into a science career and advance one has to prove him/herself by conducting experiments, (or make models) and write them up into manuscripts which then get sent to journals (mostly discipline specific) where they undergo a peer review before being published. Journals are ranked according to their impact, which is given by their readership and how often they are cited. This results in each scientist also having a number (a rank, an index) which depends on the number of papers published, the impact of the journals and the number of times they were cited (people please correct me if I am wrong..) . And to me this contributes to make sfience less sustainable than it should be. Why!? Because:
So what do I suggest? Well.. here is my list Please tell me if I am wrong, where I am wrong and if you have other ideas
2 Comments
11/26/2018 07:57:29 am
I have a son who may well take up a career in academic science so this makes interesting reading.
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