Ecogeoman recently compared working as a scientist to a gambling addiction. He has a point.
Funding rates are crappy. He applied for 10-12 small grants in the last several months hoping but never expecting to be successful. Lo and behold, he actually won two of them and he is on cloud nine. He mused that this taste of success is enough to keep him going...for a while.
It’s like gambling at a casino. The slot machine has to pay out just frequently enough to keep your interest so you’ll continue to put the money in. In science, you have to get enough grants funded to keep you wanting to try for the next one.
We hypothesized that people who make it in research are ones who can sustain longest on intermittent success. Alternatively, the most successful people probably enjoy more frequent success. We think maybe that’s not so much the case. Instead, we think that there’s selection for people who can coast on glory for longer, thereby getting more done before they are overcome with the depression of failure. There's clearly a positive feedback.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
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9 comments:
So very true.
Yay for ecogeoman! My advisor says that you haven't really tried for an NSF grant until you're on your third submission-for the same project.
2 out of 12 is a good hit rate these days. Congrats to EGM! And, of course, the more you have, the more you're likely to get in future. It's not fair, but that's the way it works.
We're seeing more and more grants with previously fundable scores just missing the pay line. Tough times for science.
Meanwhile, in Iraq...
I LOVE this. You hit the nail on the head. I, unfortunately, am too soon to forget the triumphs and too long remembering my failures. This is why benchwork is the bane of my existence.
I found failure to be easy to forget when I was a grad student because I didn't necessarily feel like I was failing anyone but myself. But maybe failure is actually easier to forget as a prof because of all of those tastes of former success!
Yay for ecogeoman! 2/12 sounds great. I think the failure and success cycles exist not only for funding, but also for paper submissions -- too many rejections in a row are just depressing. Well, actually I find one rejection depressing enough, so clearly I have much to learn if I want to stay in science.
We hypothesized that people who make it in research are ones who can sustain longest on intermittent success.
I think that's very true. And people who make it in research also seem to be the ones who are confident or optimistic enough to believe that the next big success is just around the corner.
Catching up on blogs here... Ecogeoman nailed it with that analogy. The process of research science itself is like feeding coins in that slot machine. Months, a year, even years without publishable results... utter despair... and then finally an experiment works, things start to come together, and you get addicted to that rush all over again. At least, that was the way it was for me.
so true. and congrats to ecogeoman on the money!
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