Mary E. Brunkow, one of this year's Nobel Prize winners in Medicine, has only 34 published papers and an H-index of 21.

Comments

• HexesofVexes@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The three pathways for most academics

  Option 1 - shit out a large pile of bad (either misleading, over-sensationalised, or just clearly partial work) papers, but get funding to do the same for another year.

  Option 2 - work hard to create a quality paper, run out of time, no more funding, off you go to industry.

  Option 3 - take a teaching intensive role and never have any time for research, oh and also get paid less than in industry.

  source
• zlatiah@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Important additional context on this… TLDR is that the post is only a “feel-good” post and misrepresented reality; real life is a lot more nuanced and fucked up

  Mary E Brunkow solely worked in industry (a.k.a. the scientific slang for working in something like a pharmaceuticals cpmpany) after her PhD, instead of in academia like most Nobel Prize laureates. Industry researchers rarely publish. And 34 published papers may seem low by Nobel standards but is a lot. I don’t think I personally know any industry researchers that are this prolific; some full professors even don’t have this many papers

  The bigger takeaway from this story is not “anyone can make it” if they have a good idea… Brunkow was extremely prolific as a researcher. If anything, her old company (Celltech) went defunct in 2004 and Brunkow was allegedly laid off (and no one at the time realized the importance of her discovery) which is probably a better take home message

  Her Wikipedia page as reference: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_E._Brunkow

  source

  • TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Also some discussion about this on r/labrats if anyone wants to go over to the forbidden site:

    I went. It was a mistake. Most comments were about how this post was written by ChatGPT followby how they’d love to have 34 publications. There were a couple taking about what you wrote, but I think your comment captures the best of it.

    source
  • jve@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Hah wow. Thanks for putting that into context.

    source
• Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  alot of phds are just making paper after paper which could be considered low quality, just to have thier CV presentable.

  source

  • jve@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yes—academic publishing has become a quantity engine—endlessly churning out papers that echo one another—more about survival than discovery. Many PhDs write for the CV, not the cosmos—speculating, recycling, or rephrasing ideas to stay afloat in the “publish or perish” tide—where innovation drowns quietly beneath the noise. /gpt

    Imagine how much worse it’s going to get as more and more is ai slop like the above.

    source
  • chiliedogg@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I think we also need to be careful about what we consider low-quality clones of other work.

    Reproduction of research is extremely important. It isn’t glamorous, but it’s how we verify shit.

    source
• Vex_Detrause@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Mary Elizabeth Brunkow (born 1961) is an American molecular biologist and immunologist. She is known for co-identifying the gene later named FOXP3 as the cause of the scurfy mouse phenotype, a finding that became foundational for modern regulatory T cell biology.

  source

  • olafurp@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Thanks for posting the comment I was looking for

    source
• NovaSel@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I think I heard about this. Good for her! What’d she get a prize for?

  source
• GrammarPolice@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I can win a Nobel prize too is what i gain from this?

  source

  • Chakravanti@monero.town ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Not with no I caps.

    source

    • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Would the Nobel prize committee be as petty as you?

      Like seriously, you solve a global illness and because you don’t capitalise your i’s then they’ll be like nah fam.

      source
• crmsnbleyd@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  As someone outside of academia, seeing the phrase only 34 papers feels like being shot in the face

  source

  • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Honestly if I see someone who publishes like 200+ papers I would just be wondering… What the hell did they contribute? They’re churning shit out the door so either they weren’t involved much and did the bare minimum to put their name on the paper or it was mostly inconsequential and non-impressive shit that you could churn out in a few weeks.

    source

    • skisnow@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      There’s a guy at IBM who has thousands of patents with his name on.

      He works in the department that helps people write patents.

      source
    • Eq0@literature.cafe ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It really depends on the field. I will talk about fields I know: fundamental math - one paper every 2-3 years is a good pace, every paper 50-100 pages. AI - a paper a month is the usual, with a hard cap at 10 pages, often less.

      source
    • Danitos@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      They could also be directing thesis. They’ll appear in their students papers on the topic. My professor was incresibly useful in mine, and I know he does this a lot.

      source
• Griffus@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  USians would never understand this mindset.

  source
• ayyy@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  And, before the prize fame, was she able to afford a comfortable home and a family without clout chasing?

  source
• CptOblivius@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Quality over quantity.

  source
• SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  *But also do it in your free time after your real job and do it for free

  It really is amazing any non-corporate research ever gets this far.

  source
• ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Capitalism’s perversion on display: incentivizing the wrong thing in every case.

  source

  • Gloomy@mander.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I sometimes see videos of Hossenfelder on my feed and have watched a couple. Would you mind adding some context? What are “anti-science grifters”? Sry if i’m a bit out of the loop here.

    source

    • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      There’s probably more to it but at minimum she loves to opine on things she has no expertise on and gets things very wrong as a result. Often things that aren’t even science related.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
    • sleeperdouge@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Angela Collier on YT has some good videos about these. I think those videos talks about conspiracy and science crackpots.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
• maudelix@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I will be forever grateful that my PI for my doctorate focused on technical and scientific hands-on skills rather than sitting at a desk and writing papers. It helped me much more in my current industry, especially in the field of small-scale bioreactor work.

  source
• hakase@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I mean sure, as long as I don’t care about getting tenure or finding a permanent position…

  source

  • Jhex@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The idea is that if you focus on the work, all of that would/should follow…

    I have read a few anecdotes from scholars basically confirming this: they were doing “everything right” and getting nowhere but the moment they decided to just do the work that makes them happy, all the titles and positions followed.

    I believe Patricia Ryan Madson is one such story although not in a scientific branch. IIRC, she could not get permanent positions in any university even though she had a “perfect resume” but then decided to follow her passion and her career just took off.

    I know this is idealistic, but I still wish this were how the world works

    source

    • JesusChristLover420@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I sure hope this is how it works, because I haven’t been blessed with the patience to care about any of that. I want to solve mysteries.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
• LordOfLocksley@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  What’s an H-index

  source

  • TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    …did you remove the default upvote from your own question? Before I upvoted it, it had 0 upvotes and 0 downvotes.

    source

    • Gloomy@mander.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      A rare true neutral one out in the wild.

      source
  • fossilesque@mander.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index

    source

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It basically measures how old a scientist is.

      source
• carrylex@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Not all heros wear capes

  source

  • stelelor@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Some wear lab coats and blue nitrile gloves!

    source
• mariusafa@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Science ranking is one more bullshit to deal nowadays. Like if the discovery of something new in a fiels ia going to care about how many medals you have hanging from your suit.

  This is literally the bullshit that science magazines and publication entities love the most.

  source

  • Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Don’t worry, that system is currently being completely fucked by AI as well.

    source

    • whyrat@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      If quantity is the measure instead of quality: AI wins!

      Repurposed joke: It’s able to make more mistakes faster than any other invention… with the possible exception of tequila and handguns.

      source
• tetris11@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I have a high school friend who owns a paper mill. He was a rich kid who never did the work, and always took credit for others work.

  He has an h-index of 90 and 200,000 citations. He is not a professor.

  source

  • errer@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I am not following…how does he have so many papers with a high number of citations if he is not a professor? Just an extremely prolific postdoc/person on soft money?

    source

    • rf_@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      He owns a paper mill, he games the system

      source
  • wewbull@feddit.uk ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    A paper mill will produce a lot of papers.

    source
• Stalins_Spoon@lemmygrad.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  AI slop

  source

  • SleeplessCityLights@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    This is definitely written by an ai, and it’s pure laziness when people don’t fix the styling, which makes it so obvious.

    source
• NuraShiny@hexbear.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Okay. Take your own advice and stop posting. Focus on what’s important and shut the fuck up.

  Directed at the lib who in the picture of course. No one on this site should ever stop posting.

  source

  • ThermonuclearEgg@hexbear.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    No one on this site should ever stop posting.

    The reason for this is that posting on Hexbear is the second most important thing in all of existence

    source
  • Lussy@hexbear.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Directed at the lib who in the picture of course. No one on this site should ever stop posting.

    sweat

    source
• guy@piefed.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  There’s rankings for scientists?

  source

  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    yea, if you see how hard is it to get a faculty position you will see.

    source
  • pdxfed@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The analytics are overblown, and coaches need to get back to the big picture. Stanford traded Hollins at the deadline for Wu, but picked up the player option on Candell for the 4th year. The performance bonus if they make the all-star team should provide enough motivation to ensure they don’t get saddled with a mid-career ball hog. Team chemistry will be key, hopefully during the preseason they can get it together and not have any niggling injuries interrupt. There is concern about the defensive strategy on set plays, their specialist Franco just had their contract waived and stretched under the current contract, so the team may look to the transfer market mid season when it opens, or potentially to move up in the spring draft to fill needs. Still can’t believe they traded Simpson and pay 2.7 per year for Johnson.

    Universities run by MBAs and academics operating like sports franchises.Meanwhile, they’re arresting students in campus for protesting genocide and fascism.

    Seems legit.

    source
  • balsoft@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yes, and if you fall down far enough you won’t get any grants to do any research, and “forced” to go back to teaching/mentoring. Both of those things tell a lot about the state of high-level education and academia in the west.

    source
  • cows_are_underrated@feddit.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    There absolutely is. Academia is completely fucked.

    source

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      yeah, not like Wall Street, government or industry.

      source
    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Shut up, #16,793.

      source
    • asbestos@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      They should just join the unranked servers

      source

      • -> View More Comments
• ook@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Sure, not a bad view and I don’t know much about Brunkow and how she works, to be clear… but: you do need all these things in order to get academic funding so you can work on your ideas. Which I am not saying is a great system, it isn’t, but I don’t think it is easy to say these days to academic reseachers, especially early career ones, to not care too much about publications.

  source

  • turdcollector69@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I find that people high up in academics tend to lose touch with reality.

    I remember in college one professor ranting and raving about how students worry about grades too much and that we should all focus on actually retaining the material.

    It’s like yeah that’s a pretty thought but 70% of the class was there on scholarship so if we don’t make the grade we don’t finish and have a mountain of debt.

    On a separate occasion the dean of engineering wasted 2 full lectures of ethics class ranting about how we should give to the alumni association and how “it’s a privilege to be here so we need to pay it back.”

    There were over 100 people in that room who were in at least $60k of debt to the school and we still had another semester left before graduation.

    These people have brains the size of planets but couldn’t comprehend in the slightest how reality gets in the way of their pretty little egalitarian ideals.

    source

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      and also probably not aware of the JOB market for the students, they are out of touch because they got thiers 20-30+years ago with no competition, or dont have to deal with things like INDEED or screening software. they often give bad advice as advisors(which is forced by college to become advisors), which seems to be common in most universities, just to get you out of the room quicker, so they have to deal with you anymore.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
• lowleveldata@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  filthy casual

  source