A few months ago, I submitted my PhD thesis. After all of the preparation and writing, submitting was somewhat of an anti-climax. This is because submitting those nicely bound volumes means nothing unless someone is going to read and examine them to determine if the work they contain will earn you the degree and the right to call yourself Dr.
In the UK, these examinations often happen some time after submitting, in a process known as the viva. These exams involve the examiners coming to the university/institute and conducting a private, face-to-face examination of your knowledge and the work presented in the thesis, often over a number of hours.
All this is purely explanation of the main point:
I had my PhD viva on Monday and I passed!
I passed with the most common outcome; minor corrections. This means that whilst I have passed, the examiners would like some changes to be made before the final version of record is submitted. It is only when they are happy with those changes that I will officially earn the degree.
For now, I’m beginning to come down from the celebrations and start working towards the corrections. So it is still not yet the end; I think the real closure will happen when the award letter and certificates are in my hands.
We are bombarded with ‘expert opinions’ every day in the media, both printed and broadcast, and many of these people are presented to us with their title: Prof, Dr, PhD, FRS and the like. An example might be this recent story on sleep deprivation and stroke from the Guardian, which is followed throughout.
My questions are: does including their “rank” in the scientific hierarchy automatically say to the audience “you should believe this person for they are more qualified than you“, is this committing an ‘argument from authority‘ and does this even matter at all?
The first question translates basically to whether or not an academic’s title is optional. On the one hand, they’ve earned the degree/accolade by working pretty damn hard and deserve to be called by it. In 3 years time, when (hopefully) I finish my PhD, I’ll be pretty cheesed off if ‘Dr’ doesn’t get written down in the right places. On the other hand, within science (certainly biology/biochemistry), people don’t much use their titles. At the institute where I work, titles are basically relegated to the telephone directory and a handful of email signatures. They certainly don’t appear on published papers, so why in the press release and press coverage. (As an aside, this is different in the medical world such as the BMJ, The Lancet and NEJM, where author qualifications are published). If they aren’t on the paper itself, I think that says to me that they aren’t needed in the press coverage, but I’ll admit that it’s an open question.
Does the inclusion of these titles confer authority on to whatever quote their holder is giving? I think they probably do. This might not be the intention in science reporting but it has that effect. Why else would people be so keen to use the title Dr, if not to be accepted as an expert in a field?
A better question is whether worrying about presenting a well-qualified expert as an authority figure actually matters? As noble as the Royal Society’s motto might be (nullius in verba – On the word of no-one), equally nobody has time to fact check everything, and qualifications and titles are often a pretty good heuristic for reliability. As Paul Nurse (or perhaps “the Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse PRS) recently put to James Delingpole (3m30s), when you go to a doctor, you trust their clinical judgment. You might do your own research and disagree with the consensual position, but that would be a very unusual position to take.
The problem – as there is with all such rules of thumb – is that it is open for exploitation. I alluded earlier to those who ‘pass off’ having more qualifications than they have, often in order to lend their opinion legitimacy, often for monetary gain in the form an endorsement by an expert. Weirdly, this means that every time a title such as Dr is used legitimately, it adds weight to all those using the same title illegitimately. A reverse problem can also occur – someone with a legitimate qualification, in a relevant field presents a maverick view rather than scientific consensus and can be spectacularly wrong, but still taken “on authority”. Think Andrew Wakefield and the disproven MMR/Autism link for an example.
On balance, I’m not sure that there is a right answer to the use of academic titles. To me they are a mark of respect and achievement, not authority and certainly don’t mean that everything the holder says is true and sacrosanct, but I’m not sure that is always how they are taken.
Yesterday, I attended (and helped marshall, as evidenced here) the rally for an important campaign called Science is Vital. It is a campaign against any proposed cuts to the science budget, when the spending review is published later in the month. I urge anybody who hasn’t already done so to: check out their website which details all the reasons why continued investment in science is a necessity, sign their petition and write to their MP about the campaign. It was a fantastic afternoon and great to meet up with so many people that I’ve heard about or briefly tweeted @ them but never spoken; even if it was under unfortunate circumstances with the prospect of cuts hanging over all our heads.
This campaign is more than just a self-interested group getting antsy about a policy they don’t like. Yes, many of the people who have signed the petition are scientists who are understandably worried about their own careers. I am also worried about what the state of biomedical science will be when I start looking for my first position after finishing my PhD in 3 years time.
This is about more than that though. We are saying
We already don’t have enough money to do all the research we need, with only around 20% of grant proposals finding funding, and yet we greatly ‘punch above our weight’, in almost any metric you pick; number of World-class universities, citations per researcher, papers produced against spend. We can’t get more efficient. We are already at the limit.
And it isn’t the scientists that will be the biggest losers in this. They can move to other world-leading institutions in the US, Japan, India, Australia, Germany and others. It is society that loses out, as we have to become reliant on the work of other countries to fulfil our scientific, technological and engineering needs.
The Campaign for Science and Engineering has plenty more on the economic reasons why science funding is a poor judgment, so if you like facts and figures, head here. The Science is Vital campaign has also collated photos and other reports from the event and the Pod Delusion has podcasts of all the speakers and some reporting from the rally. The rest of my own photos from the event can be found in this Flickr set.
Once a month, on the last Wednesday, the Science Museum opens its doors at night for adults only until about 10pm. Not only are the general exhibits open, but there are also special events and a recurring silent disco (in between the space exhibits!) and a pub quiz. Another notable additions include a number of bars and DJs being set up in exhibition spaces which adds to the relaxed atmosphere. Each month also has a theme and last night’s was “Genius”.
This was my second Science Museum Lates and the first one I’ve brought my camera along to, so here are a few photos documenting what we got up to last night:
Adult table football (Sadly I don't have any pictures of us)
Firstly we played this somewhat hilarious game of 5-a-side “table football” where we were all attached to sliders along scaffolding tubes for 5 minutes. Not entirely sure how this relates to genius; I guess through the tenuous link of “footballing genius” to remind us that a genius doesn’t have to be about academic intellect, but it was fun none the less. We lost 6-2!
Fun with the bubblewall
More bubble wall fun
Then it was off to play like children in the LaunchPad, as you can see we were particularly fascinated by the bubble wall thing! Before going to see a demonstration of Newton’s laws, as they related to rockets!
Newton's 3rd law in action via a human rocket.
Culminating in a hydrogen balloon explosion. 😀
After all that LaunchPad fun it was off to test our brains in a massive genius-themed pub quiz (complete with colouring competition!). We didn’t win either I’m sad to report – despite a valiant colouring attempt mounted by 2 of our teammates followed by a brief look around the plastics and the Islam exhibition rooms.
A few more of my photos are in this Flickr set and photos from myself and other participants across the other Lates nights are all in the Flickr group ‘Science Museum Lates’.
My only complaint (if you can call it that…) is that with so much going on, there is so little time to look at the exhibits! Maybe it should be another hour longer! Otherwise this is a great idea and definitely gets people into the museum who wouldn’t otherwise have gone, hopefully teaching a bit of informal science too and being a great fun night out.
The next one is 30th June – theme TBC I think. See you there!
Yesterday, the Green Party manifesto was launched. Last year I remarked (in passing and via a Times article) that the Green Party are not that hot on science/research in their manifesto for the European elections. This year in their general election video, the story is not that different, with some of the same pledges coming out to play. I have already blogged on the main parties manifesto commitments to science and education, but coming later than the other parties, and being sufficiently, well, interesting, I’ll dedicate a whole post to their pledges.
Firstly, I should mention that the word “science” doesn’t appear at all in the manifesto. However, they do have some pretty far reaching science pledges, such as this one. (emphasis throughout is all theirs.)
Immediately ban causing harm to animals (including but not only primates) in research, testing and education, and invest in the development of alternatives to animal experiments.
I’m not entirely sure I have the words to describe what I think of this pledge. Use of animals in research is clearly necessary for progress in medical research (as are humans and human tissue), despite being a fairly terrible reality. I think the BBC sums up the arguments in both directions quite well, particularly the quote from William DH Carey in a letter to the BMJ. This pledge would halt some aspects of medical research; killing people and disadvantaging us as a nation. To me this alone means I could not vote for a Green candidate. Strong regulation is one thing, but an outright ban is preposterous.
Next an onslaught again genetic modification (GM).
work for a complete ban on genetically modified food in Europe.
Here we have a technology that could help end some of the more dubious farming methods that their manifesto also discusses at length, and yet the Green Party are against it. The mind boggles.
Finally, they have this beauty on CAM.
Make available on the NHS complementary medicines that are cost-effective and have been shown to work.
Another “words fail me” moment. Cost-effective and proven to work, yes. We call that evidence-based medicine, though, not complementary. I think Tim Minchin says this best in Storm:
You know what they call “alternative medicine”
That’s been proved to work?
Medicine.”
In the interest of balance, I tried to find some science policies that I thought were positive, but alas there were none. Education is at least slightly better.
Move towards ending the need for private education by creating a programme of voluntary assimilation of private schools into the state sector. Schools that remain in the private sector would have charitable status removed and would pay all relevant taxes, such as VAT.
Finally, something I agree on. I feel strongly that education should be provided on a merit-based system, so that the brightest, not the wealthiest, get the best education. It is both best for the best individuals to be well-educated and for society who will eventually reap their benefit from the output of our brightest. Making it hard for private schools to operate is a step in the right direction.
Now don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of great things in the Green Party manifesto to be excited about such as pledges on:
ban sale of eggs from battery hens
maintain and extend blood sports ban
increase spend on waste management and recycling
and other both predictable and laudable pledges that you would expect from the Green Party. Sadly just not in the areas that are strongest to me.
Overall: Pitiful on science, a party I could not vote for. Full Manifesto
So following my earlier blog post on where the parties stood on libel reform, I thought I’d continue by examining another subject that I feel strongly about: science and science education. Now that the 3 main parties have published their manifestos, let’s see where they stand.
Labour
Labour were first out of the traps to release their manifesto, so it is only fair they get to go first.
[They] are committed to a ring-fenced science budget in the next spending review
This is great news, although an improvement and increase would be better. As Prof. Brian Cox has said (over and over), investing in science creates wealth, so an increase would actually help the economy in the long-term, and to cut it would make such a small saving in the short-term compared to long-term losses as to be non-sensical.
To help us do better in turning research outputs into innovation, we will provide focused investment for Technology and Innovation Centres, developing technologies where the UK has world-leading expertise
Not sure about this one; sounds very good, but we already have enough “focus” on impact statements for researchers and trying to second-guess how useful the research will be. The problem is, sometimes you can’t know what the eventual outcome of the research will be until you do it. The oft-quoted example is Sir Tim B
