Mickey Kosloff

I guess the lack of comments answered my question :-( - Mickey Kosloff

Not necessarily: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...; also it costs money to read that link. - Bill Hooker

My oh my. What a fascinating read. And not at all encouraging for one in very early stages of building some sort of a post-PhD career. - Gudmundur Thorisson

"This just does not happen in the male-oriented world of science in which, traditionally, dogs are keen to dine on dogs rather than share the bone between them, so to speak." ... not all male are like that... perhaps at the upper end of science they are... - Egon Willighagen

"Every scientist needs someone in a position of power who has faith in his or her abilities, to provide advice and do a bit of trumpet-blowing on his or her behalf." ... that's what I can relate to most... those do not have to be your supervisor, but you need one anyway, because there is no form to ask for some boon, it's just grabbing what is left over... someone passing some left overs is what keeps you going. - Egon Willighagen

I guess this is also why asking for some left-overs with others is rewarding... yeah, don't be afraid to ask that co-authorship... (never done that myself, but it is more common, though not openly, and I very much regret I rejected a direct co-author invite a few years ago) - Egon Willighagen

I don't understand - how one can be smart enough to become scientists and still believe to be "hard-wired"? Being successful in any area requires work on one's personality as well (for example becoming comfortable with talking to people) - and it's not "a rocket science". Sorry for harsh words, but this made me angry - I thought scientists are smarter than FoxNews audience. - Pawel Szczesny

@Pawel... it's where the balance is... right now you can get pretty far by sucking up and being with the right people, rather than being smart yourself, while at the same time these smart people fail because they are not good at that... is that what we want? I certainly don't... but it is indeed the current game play... - Egon Willighagen

Egon, I absolutely agree - current system is wrong on many levels. But we know the rules and we decide to play along or not (and that choice is a completely different story from what was written in this piece). Blaming failure on "hard-wiring" is like saying you're not "hardwired" to be good at World of Warcraft, because you tried it once without reading the manual and you didn't scored high. - Pawel Szczesny

I think that there is more than one way to succeed in science these days, and that there is no "one true path". However, and this is where this blog post comes in, there are also more than one way to fail, and in some cases you might not have full control over your path. - Mickey Kosloff

It is unfortunate that in many disciplines it's much harder to succeed nowadays based on science alone. Some excellent scientists are drawn to science *because* of their less-than-outstanding people skills and much later in their career find themselves disadvantaged by this. - Mickey Kosloff

I have to agree with Pawel. While unfortunate, the author had a pretty good run - tenured position etc. While women certainly have it harder in the sciences, complaining that you didn't do the networking because you didn't have the confidence is not a valid excuse. And to a large extent, networking is pretty core to any position of authority (and I consider tenure track profs to be in positions of authority) - Rajarshi Guha

The thing is, she makes out that she failed somehow. But she didn't. The system failed. There should be a place for people who want a normal life. - Noel O'Boyle

Pawel, Rajarshi -- I don't exactly disagree, but I think you are overlooking something crucial. You are clearly aware of the central role of networking, and perhaps you have always known that -- but for many of us (geeky types), it's an alien concept. It took me 20 years to figure it out, to the feeble extent that I *have* figured it out, and nowhere in any of my formal education was... more... - Bill Hooker

Bill, I see your point. Personally, I never thought I'd be able to talk in front of a group of people and I was painfully shy when I came to the US to start grad school. (I was quaking at my first GRC!) I suppose I was lucky that my advisor encouraged conference posters/talks. But from what I understood - the author of that article also attended conferences. But once you're at a... more... - Rajarshi Guha

I think successful social/networking skills also vary depending on your profession and type of job - successful skills in one profession don't always work well in other fields. There's also in-person versus other environments (email, phone, etc.) - Elizabeth Brown

Come to think of it, I've missed something too. It's not just that one is expected to absorb by osmosis the importance of interpersonal politics (and the skills to navigate those treacherous waters!). Equally bad, if not worse, is the Big Fat Lie Of Science -- that it's a meritocracy. We intuitively expect things to work that way, and from day one of grad school we're fed the Lie, that... more... - Bill Hooker

+1 for Bill's last comment. Science today is so competitive that, between getting your PhD and getting tenure (and often after), there's not a lot of room for mistakes along the way. Sometimes even if you make no mistakes bad luck is enough to derail you. I've seen enough good/potentially good scientists lose their way to realize it's not always about being smart and working hard (and networking well). - Mickey Kosloff

But what (that is worth doing) isn't competitive? - Rajarshi Guha

The point in science is that doing 'good' and 'exciting' science is (by and large) necessary but not (and this is exactly where Bill is right) sufficient for getting a job. In addition to the great results that others are interested in, there's a bunch of hard to control factors which, for most people, are best summarized as luck, circumstance or chance. As the saying goes, luck is a... more... - Björn Brembs

@Rajarshi: all those things that are co-operative instead. - Bill Hooker

Surely I agree about broken system which indeed requires quite a lot of other things than quality science. To come where we are everybody here needed to overcome some issues along the way (I have 20 years of experience of working on social skills/personality whatever you name it). That often wasn't necessarily a conscious effort but it doesn't matter. But I would expect that somebody with such experience as author (she was not a fresh PhD) would figure out that there's not such thing as "Nobel gene". - Pawel Szczesny