You have walked the walk...
...but can you talk the talk?
Science is apparently about "going out there" - either literally or metaphorically - (and I am happy to say that I can do it literally as metaphors tend to confuse me) and "getting some data" about something. But then there is another element of "science in progress" and that is the presentation of whatever you have thought up, found out, and experimented with.
In fact, to a scientist, everything which is not published (yet) technically does not exist, so the race is on: you have to put it out there. What is more important, you have to get there faster than other people. That's what conferences are all about, as you can put out your data fairly quickly either in an oral or poster presentation and it will be "out there", available, and therefore also "on your list", as another hit, another line or paragraph, and you can get (or claim) credit for it. In comparison, publishing in a printed or electronic journal can take months to years.
On the other hand, chatting away during coofee breaks about your next upcoming project could earn you either an "understanding" smile (meaning: "right, you have this big idea but you do not quite have it ready yet...duh!") or a nervous and imploring expression from someone who either realizes that you are on to something he/she is noe quite ready with yet, or from somebody who might try to use your idea for his/her own publishing.
The reason why I am just thinking about all this is that I just got back from such a conference, and although there was very little biology there, it was a cool and very informative experience. Most of the other people there were either into satellite imagery or computer models of the extent, dynamics, flow and mass balance of sea ice, so a typical though startling question to me on the first day was: "So, are you in acquisition or modelling?" Not wanting to admit that I was working on a much smaller scale and totally different focus, I settled for "acquisition". My bold question what the other person was doing got a semi-bored "modelling wave fields..." as an answer.
But whether they were modellers or satellite dish heads, they had one thing in common: they were all about the data. Coverage, resolution, probability functions, vessels of opportunity, channel polarization, that sort of thing. And to my great delight, they all struggled over the old "data vs. information" subject.
Sometimes new models explained old datasets better, sometimes they illustrated just how insufficient the old satellite was, and sometimes new satellites proved the old models wrong and so it went back and forth. Some, or in fact many, presentations were centered around the amount and quality of new data that people had, which by their nature already were about the "big pictures" (as in "satellite footprint") but some others were more integrating and reviewing and showed us the "even bigger pictures" as in "from points to poles", and while the first kind often attracted mostly technical questions and comments, the second kind really got the arguments going, and understandably so.
And although many of the participants looked more or less geophysically or even mathematically inclined (you figure that one out yourself), there were notable exceptions, a few of them even very notable. So, over a few beers after a long day of talks some guy worked up his courage to walk over to one especially notable colleague and said: "so, how long have you been in modelling?"
Science is apparently about "going out there" - either literally or metaphorically - (and I am happy to say that I can do it literally as metaphors tend to confuse me) and "getting some data" about something. But then there is another element of "science in progress" and that is the presentation of whatever you have thought up, found out, and experimented with.
In fact, to a scientist, everything which is not published (yet) technically does not exist, so the race is on: you have to put it out there. What is more important, you have to get there faster than other people. That's what conferences are all about, as you can put out your data fairly quickly either in an oral or poster presentation and it will be "out there", available, and therefore also "on your list", as another hit, another line or paragraph, and you can get (or claim) credit for it. In comparison, publishing in a printed or electronic journal can take months to years.
On the other hand, chatting away during coofee breaks about your next upcoming project could earn you either an "understanding" smile (meaning: "right, you have this big idea but you do not quite have it ready yet...duh!") or a nervous and imploring expression from someone who either realizes that you are on to something he/she is noe quite ready with yet, or from somebody who might try to use your idea for his/her own publishing.
The reason why I am just thinking about all this is that I just got back from such a conference, and although there was very little biology there, it was a cool and very informative experience. Most of the other people there were either into satellite imagery or computer models of the extent, dynamics, flow and mass balance of sea ice, so a typical though startling question to me on the first day was: "So, are you in acquisition or modelling?" Not wanting to admit that I was working on a much smaller scale and totally different focus, I settled for "acquisition". My bold question what the other person was doing got a semi-bored "modelling wave fields..." as an answer.
But whether they were modellers or satellite dish heads, they had one thing in common: they were all about the data. Coverage, resolution, probability functions, vessels of opportunity, channel polarization, that sort of thing. And to my great delight, they all struggled over the old "data vs. information" subject.
Sometimes new models explained old datasets better, sometimes they illustrated just how insufficient the old satellite was, and sometimes new satellites proved the old models wrong and so it went back and forth. Some, or in fact many, presentations were centered around the amount and quality of new data that people had, which by their nature already were about the "big pictures" (as in "satellite footprint") but some others were more integrating and reviewing and showed us the "even bigger pictures" as in "from points to poles", and while the first kind often attracted mostly technical questions and comments, the second kind really got the arguments going, and understandably so.
And although many of the participants looked more or less geophysically or even mathematically inclined (you figure that one out yourself), there were notable exceptions, a few of them even very notable. So, over a few beers after a long day of talks some guy worked up his courage to walk over to one especially notable colleague and said: "so, how long have you been in modelling?"
Labels: Science Stuff
posted by leptonyx at 07:44
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