Advice from an old scientist Andrew George Director

Advice from an ‘old’ scientist Andrew George Director of the Graduate School Director of the School of Professional Development Professor of Molecular Immunology

Ph. D 1987 • Little pressure on completion • No skills or similar courses • Worked with a single supervisor • Read books • Medawar, Haldane, Popper • statistics

Peter Medawar • Advice to a young scientist

What do you need to be a good scientist • skills • attitudes

Passion and enthusiasm for science • Passion for SCIENCE - not passion for oneself • Need to want to understand the truth • Want to succeed in finding the answer • Does not stop one having a passion for oneself and desire to win for oneself James Watson: The Double Helix

Curiosity • Read around the subject • Talk to people about what they do • Read stuff that is irrelevant

Hard work, diligence, doggedness, drive • Do not confuse long hours for hard work • Intellectual laziness “I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen. ” Frank Lloyd Wright

Resilience

Integrity • To truth • Go the extra mile to be willing to find faults with your own data – you will know it better than anyone else! • To colleagues • Proper attribution • generosity • To the functioning of science • Reviewing • Keeping good lab books

Humility and arrogance • Humbly arrogant • Not art! The facts can prove a beautiful hypothesis wrong.

Professional behaviour • Behaving properly • Following codes of conduct and rules • Politeness

Intelligence / imagination • Nice to have, • not must have

So how to succeed?

Have a good question • From the question flows the project • If you know the question then it is often obvious what you have to do • Problems with research often occur because the researcher does not know (or has forgotten) what the question is

What is a good question? • There are 10000000000 s of questions out there • We can only answer 1 of them at a time • Picking the good one is the most critical step in science

The question has to be interesting • Useful • Intriguing • Not obvious

Science is the art of the possible • Peter Medawar

Therefore your question has to be answerable • Scientific approach • With the equipment and techniques available • Do-able resources

What questions can science answer? • A hypothesis, proposition or theory is scientific only if it is falsifiable

All swans are white

All swans are white

Scientific approach • Not all questions can be answered by science. These should either be avoided or reformulated so that they can be answered.

Scientific or non scientific questions • • Does God exist? Does life have meaning? Why am I moved by Allegri’s Miserere? Why do I love my wife?

Scientific or non scientific questions • Did God create the world in 23 October 4004 BC? • Does a person motivated by being given a meaning to their project work harder? • Does music stimulate the release of endorphins? • Is a human more likely to partner someone who shares their educational background?

Understand scientific methodology • Not scientific techniques, but how science works • You need to learn how to pick up/develop techniques - but a list of techniques less useful than an understanding of science

If possible collaborate • Fun • Different skill sets • Different mind sets • Rules of collaboration • If 1+1=3 - be generous in acknowledgement • Easier to collaborate if you like each other

Co-authors up to 2002 Adebakin S. Coutelle C. Adams G. P. Crompton T. Aichinger G. Dallman M. J. Ali R. R. Danga R. Ananthesayanan B. Davies K. A. Andrew S. M. De Alwis M. Arancibia-Cárcamo C. V. Deonarain M. P. Ardjomand N. Diss J. K. J. Arnett H. A. Djamgoz M. B. A. Awad H. M. Dong R. Barber P. C. Dorling A. Barboni E. Dougan T. Barton D. Drake A. F. Batchelor J. R. Dyke R. J. Blades M. C. El-Gamil M. Blyth A. Epenetos A. A. Boleti E. Evans D. Bolognesi A. Farrar T. Bomphray C. C. Fehervari Z. Bookman M. A. Folkard S. G. Browning A. Foreman R. C. Buckley C. Foxwell B. M. J. Buttery L. Fraser S. P. Byrnes A. P. French R. R. Cairns T. Gale R. Callard R. E. Gallop J. L. Chan C. Garrido M. A. Chan, G Glennie M. J. Chapman P. T. Gooden C. S. R. Chen D. Gore M. Cheshire N. J. W. Gray D. Chioni A-M. Greenman J. Coffin R. S. Griffith M. E. Comer R. M. Gundel R. H. Cook H. T. Haber E. Cook J. A. Hale G. Coulthart A. Hamblin T. J. Courtenay-Luck N. S. Harbottle R. P. Page 28 Harrison A. A. Hart S. L. Haskard D. O. Háskova Z. Heelan B. T. Heuhns T. Y. Hornick P. Hounsell E. F. Houston L. L. Hsuan J. J. Hudde T. Hughes S. P. F. Hussain R. Huston J. S. Imami N. Isaacs J. D. Jacobus C. M. Jamar F. Jin D. Johns M. Jones T. Jost C. R. Kadifachi M. Kashefi K. Kemball-Cook G. Kerouedan C. King C. A. King W. J. Kinnon C. Kinsella M. T. Knight A. M. Korn D. . Mirza F. Kurucz I. Moore E. G. Kuyama J. Moreno M. B. Larkin D. F. P. Morgan S. H. Law P. Morris R. J. Lechler R. I. Naudeer S. Lee J. Nelson D. J. Lee L. Nicholls P. J. Lemoine N. R. Nicholson S. Levinsky R. J. Nicolls P. J. Levy J. B. O’Reilly N. J. Lightstone L. Ono S. J. Lloyd L. J. Oppermann H. Lord G. M. Oral H. B. Luthert P. J. Osawa H. Mackett M. Osman S. Mahiouz D. L. Palmer D. B. Maidment G. Panayi G. Mailhos C. Pani F. Manunta M. Patel M. J. Marandi M. B. Pemberton S. Martin S. R. Penney C. A. Mattia-Goldberg C. Perez P. Mc. Allister J. C. Peters A. M. Mc. Bride H. M. Pignatelli M. Mc. Cartney J. E. Pitzalis C. Mc. Cormack A Pliego Rivero B. Mc. Indoe A. Polak J. M. Mc. Kane W. Pulford K. A. F. Mc. Kay P. F. Pusey C. D. Mc. Vey J. H. Qian J. -H. Mezzanzanica D. Rankin A. M. Midulla M. Rashid M. Rayner S. A. Tay E. Reisbeck K. Taylor K. M. Renouf D. V. Taylor-Fishwick D. A. Ring C. J. A. Theoharis S. Ritter M. A Thomas H Robinson M. K. Thompson M. Rogers N. J. Thrasher A. J. Rowlinson-Busza G. Ting J P-Y Sagoo P. Titus J. A. Salama A. Totty N. F. Salama A. D. Tsang Y. T. Schnoor L. Tuddenham E. G. D. Sedibane L. M. Turner A. N. Segal D. M. Turner D. J. Sepp A. Tutt A. L. Seymour L. W. Urch C. E. Shelbourn T. E. Verma R. Siligardi G. Waldmann H. Smith A. J. Walters M. T. Smith J. Webb E. J. Smith L. J. Weber M. Spellerberg M. B. Weiner L. M. Spooner R. A. Weller R. Stafford W. F. Wilson A. Stark J Winston R. Stevenson F. K. Wolf E. J. Stevenson G. T. Wolfe J. H. Stirpe F. Wolfert M. A. Stocker C. J. Wood M. J. A. Streilein J. W. Wunderlich J. R. Tai M. -S. Xue S. A. Tan P. H. Yates A. Taube D. Zhang F.

…. from ~30 different countries Page 29 © Imperial College London

Pick good laboratories and departments • Not necessarily the ones that look nicest! • Colleagues support and challenge and push

Pick a good supervisor • • • Good scientist Will look after you You respect Compatible style Need not be your best friend

Communicate • • Have a story Papers and talks Remember your audience Decide what you want to communicate

Diagrams Tufte: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Diagrams (1880) Tufte: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Writing • Plan, plan and then plan some more • Get it as close to right first time • Less is normally more “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. ” Mark Twain”

Careers post Ph. D

Career • Say YES whenever possible • Take opportunities • Career is your responsibility - but no one owes you a living! • Career is rarely planned – or if it is it does not work out • But prepare for and take opportunities • Napoleon liked lucky generals

Collegiate • Be collegial • Do not be a door mat

What is the future?

Publishing • Tyranny of impact factor • Future tyranny of h index • Still publishing as if in Caxton’s day • Slow • Expensive (peer review) • Incomplete • Need to publish primary data • Short reports linked to primary data • Continual upgrading of story • Journals will be collections – like Faculty 1000

Correlation between IF and times paper cited

Ranking of papers by citation – h index

Ranking of papers by citation – h index

Even personal citations not useful • Publications of record • Papers influence in field • ‘false’ reasons for citation

Reward system • At the moment reward scientists (give them grants, promote them) on the basis of publications and grant income • However, this puts in perverse drivers • Sexy fields • Not new or solid fields • Competition is useful.

Interdisciplinary science • Yes • But need to have a disciplinary base!

Collaborative science • Increasingly important • Small people working with big data • Data collection and data analysis may be separated – astronomy • Polymath project • a new combinatorial proof to the density version of the Hales-Jewett theorem 40 people contributed, solved in 7 weeks, 2 papers

Final words Enjoy your research