Tag Archives: Humility

The Nobel Prize violates a central paradigm of science

With the current hype around prize winners, we may not forget about the much larger number of scientists who have been never honored or even lost their live for doing good science.

The Nobel Prize violates a central paradigm of science that false opinions are always corrected, see also the summary at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_controversies.

So this is not so much about the recent scandal around the secretary of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, Urban Lendahl, who resigned due to the Macchiarini scandal.

Or about the recent Astra Zeneca money behind the nomination of Harald zur Hausen. I am thinking here about cruel treatments for example

1927 “for the discovery of the therapeutic value of malaria inoculation in the treatment of dementia paralytica” to Julius Wagner-Jauregg

1949 to Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz “for the discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy (lobotomy) in certain psychoses”.

The refrain is a familiar one that there are no isolated geniuses but (Atlantic), it

reinforces a flawed reward system in science in which the winner takes all, and the contributions of the many are neglected by disproportionate attention to the contributions of a few.

Humility

I am surrounded by people who published close to or more than 500 papers, who have a super high Hirsch factor of bigger than 100, who have had third party funding more than 10 mill, who get prices that I have never heard before.

Scientists who spend their life in first class plane seats but not in the lab, who spend their night in expensive hotels while their postdocs do all the work. Scientists at broadcasted talk shows who haven’t read a paper from start to finish for years.

Ritchie “Science Fictions” 2020

In 
fact, 
the 
way 
academic 
research 
is 
currently
 set 
up 
incentivises these
 problems,
 encouraging
 researchers
 to
 obsess
 about
 prestige,
 fame, funding
 and
 reputation
 at
 the
 expense
 of
 rigorous,
 reliable
 results.

For true science the only way is to accept our incapability, our disability and our powerlessness. As @DrTedros said yesterday

Standard is Failure not Success…

Prof. Dr. Dr. Dr. hc (mult)

Es sieht beeindruckend aus.

Ich bekomme nicht wenig Emails, die alle möglichen akademischen Titel im Namensfeld haben, Dr. Dr. hc (mult), dazu Boss, Chair, Chief, Director, CEO in der Signatur.
Bescheidenheit ist eine Zier, doch besser lebt man ohne ihr, das wusste schon die Generation meiner Großmutter.
Aber weder individualpsychologisch noch gruppensoziologisch hat Bescheidenheit noch einen besonders guten Ruf.
Ich meine allerdings, daß unser Privileg als Wissenschaftler einen Eindruck von der Größe der Welt zu haben, einem die eigene Leistung reichlich klein erscheinen lässt.
Und wenn jemand wie der große Johann Sebastian Bach über seine Noten nur SDG (“soli deo gloria”) schreibt, dann beeindruckt mich das mehr, als jede Häufung akademischer Titel.
Und wo wir schon bei Bach sind, in der Motette “Jesu, meine Freude” heisst es dann auch in der vierten Strophe

Weg ihr eitlen Ehren,
Ich mag euch nicht hören,
Bleibt mir unbewußt!

Nietzsche hat das auch beobachtet „Lucas 18,14 verbessert: Wer sich selbst erniedrigt, will erhöhet werden.“

Das empfinden wohl auch andere so….