The #scimom project: We are here!

Posted on April 9, 2011April 9, 2011 by admin

This post is a contribution to the #scimom blog project, which its originator David Wescott describes as follows:

Online moms have extraordinary power – far more than most people realize. Companies listen to them. Policy makers listen to them. Moms make the overwhelming majority of decisions in life – what to buy, who to vote for, when to get health care, and so on. They do most of the work. They do most of the child-rearing. They’re the boss. The problem is a lot of online moms feel labeled, disrespected, and misunderstood.

Science bloggers push the boundaries of ideas. They give us facts, and theories, and great stories about discovery. They celebrate the pursuit of knowledge and help us understand all kinds of important things. The problem is a lot of science bloggers also feel labeled, disrespected, and misunderstood.

I think if moms are making decisions based on the right information and with the right context – the kind of context you can get from science bloggers – the world will be a much better place. And I think if science bloggers understand the perspectives of the REAL influential people in our society, they can help make sure their work has an even bigger impact than it already does.

Of course I know there are plenty of people who are scientists AND moms. But even those mom/science bloggers tend to stick to one community or the other. In my observations over a few years now, these two online communities remain fairly isolated from each other. So I’ve been working on an idea to get the two communities talking. Here it is, plain and simple.

1) if you’re a mom blogger, write a post this month that has something to do about science or science blogging. It could be anything -your love (or hatred) of science or a particular scientist, a hope you have for your child, an appropriate role model, whatever you like. Just make it personal and relevant to your life.

2) if you’re a science blogger, write a post this month that has something to do with parenting or parent blogging. Maybe it’s something your parent did to get you interested in science. Maybe it’s on the science of parenting. Maybe it’s your love (or skepticism) of something in the mom-o-sphere. Just make it personal and relevant to your life.

3) if you’re a mom AND a scientist, then just write a post this month about how awesome it is to be a mom and a scientist or something like that. Maybe suggest a role model, or a story about why both roles are important to you. Just make it personal and relevant to your life. As far as I’m concerned you make an awesome role model and people should know about you.

4) ask another blogger in your online community to participate. You can call them out in your post like it’s a blog meme or you can ask them any way you like.

5) tag your post #scimom and I will keep track of the posts and link to them at Science for Citizens and here as well. If you want to tweet a link to your post, just add the hashtag #sci-mom and we’ll keep a tally so people can find relevant posts to read.

6) read a post from a blogger in the OTHER community (i.e. if you’re a mom blogger read a participating science blogger’s post and vice versa) and leave a comment.

I can remember the moment that I realized there was a presumptive rift between science bloggers and mommy bloggers. It was at ScienceOnline 2010, during an Ignite talk in which some dude was carrying on about how powerful (yet how sadly ill-informed about science) mommy bloggers were as a group.

I believe it was Dr. Isis, who was also in attendance for this jaw-dropping proclamation, who let fly the first profanity (sotto voce, of course — do not doubt that Dr. Isis has manners). But I had a profanity of my own at the ready, for verily, eye contact with the domestic and laboratory goddess confirmed that I had heard what I thought I had heard — the dude at the podium had essentially just asserted that we didn’t exist.

Because, see, we had thought that we were science bloggers, what with blogging about cool scientific findings and strategies for teaching science, learning science, navigating a scientific career, and living as a scientist in a society populated by lots of non-scientists, and that we were mommy bloggers, what with blogging about the joys and challenges of juggling the young humans we were raising with our careers. But apparently, we either didn’t count as mommy bloggers (because of all that science content) or as science bloggers (because of the encroachment of all that kid stuff). No true science blogger or mommy blogger would do it like we were doing it.

Actually, the problem as I see it was that the guy on the podium, trying to make the world a better place by encouraging the science bloggers to reach out and educate the mommy bloggers, was operating from an overly narrow picture of each of these groups. Sadly, experience suggests that he is not the only one.

I have had my status as a “real” science blogger questioned because I don’t just blog about scientific research (particularly as reported in the peer reviewed scientific literature). In particular, my “Friday Sprog Blogging” posts have been singled out as “fluff” that doesn’t belong on a proper science blog. It is true that these anecdotes and transcripts of conversations of my offspring do not undergo rigorous peer review before I post them, but I suspect that the real worry is that having conversations with kids about science is viewed as less important than making new scientific knowledge, or than reporting on such new knowledge in a blog post. Talking to children, after all, is still mostly seen as women’s work. How important could it be?

This is a good question to ask oneself when bemoaning the public’s lack of interest in or engagement with science. Those members of the public used to be somebody’s kids.

At the same time, I will confess that there have been moments when I have not felt entirely welcome in the mommy precincts of blogtopia. Perhaps part of this comes from having a blog with a mostly professional focus on days that are not Friday. But part of it may be connected to the “mommy wars” that the mainstream media gin up on a regular basis. There is a presumption that factions of mommies are engaged in heated battle over The Right Way To Do It. This imagines that each choice a mommy makes is simultaneously a criticism of those who chose otherwise — whether those choices have to do with taking on primary responsibility for child rearing and housework in the home or going out to a job, choosing public school or private school or homeschooling or unschooling, feeling torn about daycare or deliriously happy when we drop off our little darlings.

I would like to inform the mainstream media and my fellow mothers that my choices are my choices, not judgments of anyone else’s choices. Heck, I’m as likely to judge my own choices harshly as anyone else’s. But what can you do when you’re operating with less than perfect information (as we all are, all the time)? The best that you can.

This is not to say that there aren’t moments when I share a strong point of view. In particular, a post I wrote about the ethics of not vaccinating one’s kids provoked a vigorous response — from science bloggers and mommy bloggers alike. (The science bloggers seemed to agree that I was being too nice, while at least some mommy bloggers seemed to think I was either in the bag for big pharma or thoroughly brainwashed by the medical establishment.)

But here’s the thing: I’ve found that my own parenting has required thinking hard, finding reliable sources of information, being willing to step away from sources of information that haven’t stood up to scrutiny, figuring out how to balance long-term and short-term considerations, … really, what we’re talking about here is critical thinking. I reckon that women are no worse at critical thinking than your average member of the general public, and I reckon that women with kids have serious incentive to be better than average at critical thinking, since someone else’s welfare may depend on it. (I’m not the only one who thinks critical thinking ought to be part of parenting.)

Mommy bloggers have to wade through the gender smog of our culture that tells them that women in general and mommies in particular are presumed to be silly, frivolous creatures, lacking in intelligence and objectivity (not to mention a sense of humor), a special interest that normal human beings can marginalize as necessary to get stuff done.

Women blogging about science often face similar presumptions.

None of this is to say that there are no mommy bloggers, or woman science bloggers, who aren’t always on top of their critical thinking game, or who are mistaken about the facts, or who are mean, or what have you. But I submit to you that these failings are not gender based — that there are plenty of male bloggers who fail at critical thinking, fact-checking, and human kindness.

Having kids and caring about science are not mutually incompatiblestates of being. And either (or both) of these states can be combined with being a woman, and with blogging.

We are far too diverse for any stereotype of science bloggers or of mommy bloggers to describe us all with any fidelity.

And, despite suggestions that mommy bloggers and science bloggers are two distinct groups, many of us are both. We are here. If science bloggers want to reach mommy bloggers, the first step may be to see us as we really are, rather than trying to communicate with who you imagine mommy bloggers to be.

* * * * *
As with all meme-like things, if you want to be tagged, you are. In the meantime, let me point out a few other mommy/science bloggers whose blogs I enjoy reading:

Federal funding and Planned Parenthood.

Posted on April 8, 2011April 8, 2011 by admin

Federal funding for Planned Parenthood is apparently a serious bone of contention in the budget slug-fest that threatens a government shutdown at midnight tonight. So it’s worth having a look at just what that federal funding does (and does not) do.

From Jodi Jacobson at RH Reality Check:

All (let me repeat this: ALL) of Planned Parenthood’s federal funding goes toward basic health care. Public funds account for roughly a third of Planned Parenthood’s $1 billion annual budget. These funds come from local, state and federal sources, but 90 percent come from Medicaid and other federal sources. Federal funds pay only for cancer screenings, birth control, family planning visits, annual exams, testing for HIV and other STIs, and other basic care.

Moreover, Planned Parenthood centers provide access to those who otherwise have NO other options. Seventy-three percent of Planned Parenthood health centers are in rural or medically underserved areas.
Planned Parenthood provides primary and preventive health care to many who otherwise would have nowhere to turn. According to the Guttmacher Institute, six in ten patients who receive care at a family planning health center like Planned Parenthood consider it their main source of health care. And for every dollar spent on this preventive care, we save four dollars in health costs averted by not preventing adverse outcomes. …

What will happen if Planned Parenthood is defunded? It is very simple. More women will die of otherwise preventable or treatable breast and cervical cancers and potentially of complications of infections such as HIV; more women will have unintended pregnancies leading to more women seeking abortions; fewer women raped or experiencing gender-based violence in their homes at the hands of intimate partners will get health care or referrals to shelters (of which of course there will be few anyway because funds for those also are being cut). More women who rely on Planned Parenthood to identify conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes will not get necessary referrals for treatment. More families will suffer.

You may recall that since 1976 the Hyde Amendment has barred the use of federal funds to pay for abortions.

Just so we’re clear about what’s at issue.

How can you have a university without a philosophy department?

Posted on April 6, 2011April 6, 2011 by admin

It’s no secret to readers of this blog (or residents of these United States who have been paying attention to the world that exists more than six inches from their faces) that the last few years have been rough for state budgets, and that the budget woes are especially noticeable for state university systems.

A recent case in point: owing to budget shortfalls in Nevada, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas is poised to eliminate its Philosophy Department entirely. The current chair of that department, Todd Edwin Jones, has an eloquent piece in the Boston Review that explains some of the reasons that this budgetary strategy is likely to impoverish the UNLV educational experience. He writes:

Philosophy has prompted confusion and anger ever since Socrates, one of the first practitioners of the discipline, was sentenced to death in 399 B.C.E. for “corrupting the youth.” Puzzlement over why people study philosophy has only grown since Socrates’ era. It is not surprising that in hard economic times, when young people are figuring out how best to prepare themselves for the world, many state college administrators and the taxpayers they serve believe that offering classes in philosophy is a luxury they can’t afford.

Yet people think of philosophy as a luxury only if they don’t really understand what philosophy departments do. I teach one of the core areas of philosophy, epistemology: what knowledge is and how we obtain it. People from all walks of life—physicists, physicians, detectives, politicians—can only come to good conclusions on the basis of thoroughly examining the appropriate evidence. And the whole idea of what constitutes good evidence and how certain kinds of evidence can and can’t justify certain conclusions is a central part of what philosophers study. Philosophers look at what can and can’t be inferred from prior claims. They examine what makes analogies strong or weak, the conditions under which we should and shouldn’t defer to experts, and what kinds of things (e.g., inflammatory rhetoric, wishful thinking, inadequate sample size) lead us to reason poorly.

This is not to say that doctors, district attorneys, or drain manufactures cannot make decent assessments without ever taking a philosophy class. It’s also possible for someone to diagnose a case of measles without having gone to medical school. The point is that people will tend to do better if, as part of their education, they’ve studied some philosophy. (This is one of the reasons why undergraduate philosophy majors have the highest average scores on the standard tests used for admission to post-graduate study.) No matter what goals someone has, she can better achieve them through assessing evidence more effectively, which philosophy can teach her. Questions about whether this or that goal is one that is good to have or whether certain goals are consistent with other goals, in turn, concern ethics and values—other subjects that philosophers have long pursued.

Philosophy is sometimes described as revolving around “the big questions” — what can we know, how sure can we be, what do we value, how can we get along in a world where others have very different values than our own. etc. They aren’t big because they are insurmountable (although some of them are wicked-hard). Rather, they are big because they keep coming up in all sorts of contexts, and because getting them right (or more right than not) is important.

Philosophy classes make students grapple with these questions. In the process, they help students develop strategies for dealing with other questions in other context. In the process, philosophy students learn to think carefully, to argue clearly, to evaluate evidence, and to think through sensible objections to their own views. Philosophy students have to become proficient with language, both oral and written. They have to think analytically — and often, abstractly. Philosophy is a discipline that pushes book nerds to be more math-y (what with the formal logic most philosophy degrees require) and math geeks to be more verbal (with all those essays and class discussions).

Philosophy classes leave students with skills more broadly applicable than dissecting individual axons out of a fruit fly embryo.

Not, of course, that I want to argue that the value of a college education or its component parts lies solely in the delivery of practical jobs skills. (Indeed, I’ve argued against this view.) But if we want to rank the value of academic departments in terms of the valuable and/or widely transferable job skills they impart to their students, I reckon philosophy will hold its own against the more “practical” disciplines one might name.

These are skills we try just as hard to impart in “service” courses (i.e., those taken largely by students in other majors to fulfill general education or distribution requirements) as in courses aimed at our majors. Moreover, they are skills that our peers in other departments and college recognize that we have some skill in imparting, given that they call upon our expertise to do things like develop ethics curricula for their majors. (It is true that these ethics curricula are often spurred into existence by an outside accreditation agency for a discipline, or by funding agency strings attached to a training grant. This strikes me as more evidence that organizations beyond the ivory tower — including science and engineering organizations — identify a central strand of philosophy as important in the training of people entering these non-philosophy disciplines.)

Arguably, philosophy could also provide people with skills that are important to participating effectively — heck, to participating rationally in the governance of our nation, our states, our communities. As Jones writes:

It’s long been recognized that some tasks are best coordinated by governments, and that to succeed in these efforts, governments have to raise revenue from citizens. Since colonial times, Americans have recognized that education is one of the things that taxpayers need to support (and those were some lean times!). Sadly, over the last several decades, Americans seem to have grown accustomed to thinking that they can have roads, schools, fire departments, and Medicare without fully paying for them. Now that such thinking has proven a fantasy, taxpayers should have responded with a sensible, “We should have been paying for these things, and perhaps we should start.” Instead they have clamored to cut spending—usually on things that don’t directly concern them or whose immediate benefits aren’t apparent. Such thinking leads new Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval to propose a budget with enormous cuts to education (including elementary school). And it leads college administrators to insist that these cuts require eliminating the Philosophy Department.

(Bold emphasis added.)

An attentive philosophy student has a toolbox with which to analyze this magical taxpayer thinking, whether in terms of ethics or political theory, in terms of our ability to think down the links of a causal chain or our difficulties with empathy.

Surely, more facility with critical thinking, not less, is what it will take to bring us through a difficult economic climate.

Of course, when there’s not enough money in the budget (and when the populace and/or their elected representative have ruled out tax increases as a way to get enough money), stuff gets cut. Maybe some of that stuff really is of little value, but a lot of the things left to cut are going to hurt someone when they’re gone.

Eliminating a philosophy department may not cause the same degree of immediate harm as would, say, cutting off medical aid to the indigent or eliminating free school lunches for poor elementary school kids. But it will cause harm. Maybe that harm will take longer to smack the people of Nevada in the face, but this doesn’t mean that the impact won’t be devastating.

Autism Awareness Month: some links.

Posted on April 6, 2011April 6, 2011 by admin

Since April is Autism Awareness Month, here are some links to relevant posts worth reading:

At Shakesville, a guest post from LydiaEncyclopedia: Autism Acceptance For Autism Awareness Month:

Autism Awareness Month has been a thorn in my side for as long as I’ve been an adult. I am at heart an attention-seeker, so you would think having an entire month devoted to people like me would be a joy to behold. But that’s the problem behind Autism Awareness Month. It isn’t about me. It’s not about me—the autistic person. The entire conception of Autism Awareness Month doesn’t even revolve around autism, not the kind I have or the kind that anyone I know lives with. The ‘autism’ of Autism Awareness Month is a mysterious, esoteric, silent force, which magically swoops into the homes of unsuspecting families, and replaces regular, darling children with empty husks, ala the Changelings of ancient myths.

It’s not even entirely about the children who are these so-called “empty shells.” The entire focus of Autism Awareness Month seems to be divided between what sad, pathetic existences they must lead, and the potential for a real, neurotypical, normal child that lies just around the corner in the next type of chelation, cure, or therapy. Rather than shedding light on what autism is, Autism Awareness Month has served to cloud autism further in lies, half-truths, pity, and the tyranny of low expectations.

Also, a couple of the links dropped by the excellent Shakesville commenters on that post:

At Square 8, The ever-expanding list of neurotypical privilege.
(H/T codeman38)

At ballastexistenz, Hey, watch it, that’s attached!:

I am going to take cure to refer to removal of all things that have been defined by the medical profession, about my body, as disabilities, in the individual, medical sense that medical people make it. Some of the things I am about to describe may not sound like they are out of the ordinary. They aren’t. But at some point along the line, they have, in my life, become medicalized. For instance, certain particular genes generate things considered (in the medical/individual model of disability) disabling, but also a number of other things that taken alone would be ordinary. Since all those traits stem from the same genes, I have to conclude that they’d have to go as well, even the harmless or relatively ordinary bits. Cure, after all, does not pick and choose, it’s about removing all traces of the thing regarded as “a disability” medically. …

Cure means rearranging me on everything from the obvious physical level to the genetic level. Rearranging at the genetic level always entails surprises. Pull on one thing and you find it’s attached to ten other things you didn’t even notice and would never have predicted, because you didn’t know that gene dealt with all of those things at once instead of one tidy little thing at a time. Similarly, rearranging the brain and other parts of the body will always have effects you didn’t count on. This is what happens when you mess with systems that are complex and interconnected.

(H/T: KA101)

Finally, some interesting discussions of research:

At Cracking the enigma, How do siblings influence theory of mind development in children with autism?:

Research conducted in the past 15 years or so has consistently shown that children with siblings of a similar age tend to pass tests of “theory of mind” at a younger age than those without siblings. The implication is that the experience of interacting with siblings helps children to develop the concept that other people have minds and that their thoughts and beliefs are sometimes different from their own.

Children with autism typically struggle on tests of theory of mind. An interesting question, then, is what effect siblings have on theory of mind development in autism. Based on the literature on typically developing kids, we might expect siblings of autistic children to have a beneficial effect. We could even make a case that, because autistic kids may have fewer interactions with non-family members, siblings may be even more important than normal. Counterintuitively, however, a new study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry suggests that having older siblings can have a detrimental effect on autistic children’s theory of mind development. …

The authors speculate that well-meaning older siblings may over-compensate for the autistic child’s difficulties. By treating them with kid gloves, they may somehow limit their development. Younger siblings might be less likely to do this and so have a more benign influence. However, it’s not clear why having older siblings would be worse than having none at all.

At The Autism Crisis, Are autistic people lost in space?:

In one short paper, Elizabeth Pellicano and colleagues claim to demolish Simon Baron Cohen’s systemizing account of autism. They also conclude that autistics’ strong visual search and probabilistic learning abilities fail in large-scale space, ergo in the real world. …

Well first, it’s an interesting task, even if it’s not a visual search task.

But even if autistics totally failed (they didn’t, and search all you want again, but you will find no rationale in this paper for the drop-off-a-cliff thresholds pushed by the authors), this task doesn’t map easily onto the authors’ sensational claims. These include that autistics can’t find “shoes in the bedroom, apples in a supermarket, or a favourite animal at the zoo” ergo can’t achieve independence.

Of course I want a whole lot more data, or an excellent rationale (none is provided) for not reporting most of it. And numerous possibilities were overlooked. …

No one knows how autistics would have performed if given accurate task instructions (to take the shortest path, as measured by the authors, to the target). Maybe someone else can bring up motor differences, which plausibly are relevant to this “true-to-life” task. And I wonder how clear, for autistics, the task instructions were with respect to revisits.

Autistics should be notorious by now for noticing aspects of tasks that nonautistics don’t (fantastic example at IMFAR last year), and for exploring more possibilities than nonautistics (examples here and here). Writing this off as a bad thing, as autistics being lost in space or some dire equivalent, is shortsighted to say the least.

Social Studies: The Pressure to Procreate.

Posted on October 22, 2010October 22, 2010 by admin

The following guest post was submitted by a reader who is struggling with balancing social and familial expectations as she tries to pursue a career and delays having children. She submitted this post seeking reader feedback from others who may have experienced this situation. She has requested to remain anonymous to maintain family peace, which is at a fragile state at the moment.

I adore children. I have a very sweet goddaughter who will be a year old next month, and I love her dearly. I also have an older goddaughter about to enter those dreaded teen years, and it’s exciting to watch her navigate this portion of her life. My husband’s best friend, whom we both consider a sister, just had a bouncing baby boy and I’m looking forward to hearing him call me “Aunty.” And there are two beautifully pregnant women in the family currently—both cousins, one with her first child, the other with her second. So I am surrounded by babies. That said, I personally do not have any children of my own. This has largely been the result of careful planning on the part of myself and my husband. We have our own time line, but for many of our relatives the delay represents a huge social breach, and they are starting to bear down somewhat harshly.

I am a 28-year-old West Indian woman who married her childhood sweetheart, voluntarily, at the age of 18. He is Bengali. As a West Indian marrying into a Bengali family, you would think the transition would be easy to manage—we are from similar backgrounds after all. But it’s been surprisingly difficult. I’m not sure how much of it is a cultural difference though and how much is a generational difference. It seems to be a fair mix though there are a fair number of young women who seem to be going the traditional route (i.e., getting married, having teh babiez, staying home, etc.) Now, you may also think to yourself, well, if you were childhood sweethearts, don’t you know what you were getting into? Well, no. When I say childhood sweethearts, I mean real childhood sweethearts. He had a crush on me in the sixth grade! He brought me apple juice. We went to different high schools and reconnected in college, when we decided we wanted to get married. And we eloped, partly because we didn’t want a a huge fuss made, and partly because we knew neither set of parents would agree to letting a pair of 18-year-olds get married.

Flash forward ten years later to a recent baby shower, where the aunts were clucking as per normal when they spotted me. “When are you having babies?” I was asked. “Why don’t you want children?” “Don’t you like children?” “Your mother-in-law wants a grandbaby!” I managed to deflect all of this with good cheer as I normally do (e.g., “[The MIL] has [the family dog] to spoil!”) and for the most part my responses were met with jovial laughter. I’m a pro at this discussion, I thought. And I should be—I’m used to it.

And then one of them dropped a bomb on me: “What? Can’t you have children? You’re going to need a test tube baby!” she taunted. This declaration/announcement was made at the top of her lungs in front of a room of family and strangers, and I admit it stopped me in my tracks. It stopped most of the room too as a moment of somewhat uneasy silence unfolded. I wasn’t sure how to respond. I know I was embarrassed and angry all at once. For the record, I have nothing against IVF. I think that if it can help a couple have a baby when they’re having trouble conceiving, then they should go for it. Kate Clancy, who went through this process was actually featured on CNN a few weeks ago. Her story is amazing. However, from this aunt’s tone, you could tell that you would be less of a woman if you needed a “test tube” baby. But that’s not the point. What I was reacting to was the assumption that there was something wrong with me because I hadn’t produced a brood of children yet at the ancient age of 28.

This is just the latest jab in the mounting pressure from all sides that feel I should have borne a child by now. My waistline is closely scrutinized, and the slightest bump is reason to be questioned. And since I’m not pregnant, I have no reason to carry any extra weight, so any extra bulges are evidence that I am just fat, and just don’t care. It’s become exhausting. This shouldn’t bother me, and it hasn’t for a long time, but what is starting to bother me is the derision that accompanies their statements. “We know you’re focused on your studies,” they say as a lead in to the conversation. Studies?? What studies? I’ve been out of school for two years. I’ve been working—trying to establish a career. Do any of you actually know me? Actually know what I do?

I’m a successful blogger and published writer. I have an advanced degree. I’ve won numerous awards for academic accomplishments, been in countless science competitions, and I’m a successful professional. I help build leading websites and web tools. But none of that matters. Children to this group are a sort of cultural currency. I’ve been measured in public based on the bag I carry and the clothes I wear, and I am measured in private by the family by my apparent (lack of) fertility. And until I produce a child, I know I won’t measure up to their expectations—hell, even when I produce the child I won’t measure up. Partly because I am an outsider to their cultural background (and what will I know about raising children properly?) and partly because I plan to continue working instead of staying home and raising him or her, which is also somewhat unacceptable. (The hubby was once told that marrying a smart woman is fine, but it means the house will never be clean, that there will never be food on the table, and the children will run wild.) I feel these are personal decisions. Am I crazy?

The constant questioning adds another layer of annoyance. Will it detract from the joy when we do announce we’re expecting? Will there be a sense that we got pregnant because we were told to do so? Instead of “That’s wonderful!” will we get “It’s about time!”? Will they take credit for the fact that we’ve conceived? Again, I’m trying to see this from their perspective. This is a culture where women traditionally maintain the hearth of the home by remaining in it. I realize that I am somewhat of a puzzle to them and this may be their way of fitting me into their norms and expectations. But in trying to fit me in—if that’s what they’re doing—they’ve managed to minimize everything else that I’ve done. And I just don’t think that’s cool, man.

The hubby does not buy into the traditional view. He’s proud of me and my accomplishments and he deflects the baby question as often as I do. He does not think this should bother me, because at this point we both know that the family will not rest until we “prove” ourselves with a child. But I am exhausted from fielding comments and questions about my fertility. It’s not anyone’s business, but since it seems to be everyone’s business, I’m doing an impromptu cultural/gender study: ladies are you experiencing the same thing? Is this a cultural issue? Or a gender issue? Have you been through the same? How did you survive and when did it stop?

More is better? Received widsom in the tribe of science.

Posted on October 1, 2010October 1, 2010 by admin

Because it’s turning out to be that kind of semester, I’m late to the party in responding to this essay (PDF) by Scott E. Kern bemoaning the fact that more cancer researchers at Johns Hopkins aren’t passionate enough to be visible in the lab on a Sunday afternoon. But I’m sure as shooting going to respond.

First, make sure you read the thoughtful responses from Derek Lowe, Rebecca Monatgue, and Chemjobber.

Kern’s piece describes a survey he’s been conducting (apparently over the course of 25 years) in which he seemingly counts the other people in evidence in his cancer center on Saturdays and Sundays, and interviews them with “open-ended, gentle questions, such as ‘Why are YOU here? Nobody else is here!'” He also deigns to talk to the folks found working at the center 9 to 5 on weekdays to record “their insights about early morning, evening and weekend research.” Disappointingly, Kern doesn’t share even preliminary results from his survey. However, he does share plenty of disdain for the trainees and PIs who are not bustling through the center on weekends waiting for their important research to be interrupted by a guy with a clipboard conducting a survey.

Kern diagnoses the absence of all the researchers who might have been doing research as an indication of their lack of passion for scientific research. He tracks the amount of money (in terms of facilities and overhead, salaries and benefits) that is being thrown away in this horrific weekend under-utilization of resources. He suggests that the researchers who have escaped the lab on a weekend are falling down on their moral duty to cure cancer as soon as humanly possible.

Sigh.

The unsupported assumptions in Kern’s piece are numerous (and far from novel). Do we know that having each research scientist devote more hours in the lab increases the rate of scientific returns? Or might there plausibly be a point of diminishing returns, where additional lab-hours produce no appreciable return? Where’s the economic calculation to consider the potential damage to the scientists from putting in 80 hours a week (to their health, their personal relationships, their experience of a life outside of work, maybe even their enthusiasm for science)? After all, lots of resources are invested in educating and training researchers — enough so that one wouldn’t want to break them on the basis of an (unsupported) hypothesis offered in the pages of Cancer Biology & Therapy.

And while Kern is doing economic calculations, he might want to consider the impact on facilities of research activity proceeding full-tilt, 24/7. Without some downtime, equipment and facilities might wear out faster than they would otherwise.

Nowhere here does Kern consider the option of hiring more researchers to work 40 hour weeks, instead of shaming the existing research workforce into spending 60, 80, 100 hours a week in the lab.

They might still end up bringing work home (if they ever get a chance to go home).

Kern might dismiss this suggestion on purely economic grounds — organizations are more likely to want to pay for fewer employees (with benefits) who can work more hours than to pay to have the same number of hours of work done my more employees. He might also dismiss it on the basis that the people who really have the passion needed to do the research to cure cancer will not prioritize anything else in their lives above doing that research and finding that cure.

If that is so, it’s not clear how the problem is solved by browbeating researchers without this passion into working more hours because they owe it to cancer patients. Indeed, Kern might consider, in light of the relative dearth of researchers with such passion (as he defines it), the necessity of making use of the research talents and efforts of people who don’t want to spend 60 hours a week in the lab. Kern’s piece suggests he’d have a preference for keeping such people out of the research ranks, but by his own account there would hardly be enough researchers left in that case to keep research moving forward.

Might not these conditions prompt us to reconsider whether the received wisdom of scientific mentors is always so wise? Wouldn’t this be a reasonable place to reevaluate the strategy for accomplishing the grand scientific goal?

And Kern does not even consider a pertinent competing hypothesis, that people often have important insights into how to move research forward in the moments when they step back and allow their minds to wander. Perhaps less time away from one’s project means fewer of these insights.

The part of Kern’s piece that I find most worrisome is the cudgel he wields near the end:

During the survey period, off-site laypersons offer comments on my observations. “Don’t the people with families have a right to a career in cancer research also?” I choose not to answer. How would I? Do the patients have a duty to provide this “right”, perhaps by entering suspended animation? Should I note that examining other measures of passion, such as breadth of reading and fund of knowledge, may raise the same concern and that “time” is likely only a surrogate measure? Should I note that productive scientists with adorable family lives may have “earned” their positions rather than acquiring them as a “right”? Which of the other professions can adopt a country-club mentality, restricting their activities largely to a 35–40 hour week? Don’t people with families have a right to be police? Lawyers? Astronauts? Entrepreneurs?

How dare researchers go home to their families until they have cured cancer?

Indeed, Kern’s framing here warrants an examination of just what cancer patients can demand from researchers (or any other members of society), and on what basis. But that is a topic so meaty that it will require it’s own post.

Besides which, I have a pile of work I brought home that I have to start plowing through.

Is having it all impossible?

Posted on August 3, 2010August 3, 2010 by admin

One of the things I’m liking a lot about this new community at Scientopia is the fact that it has helped me find some cool new blogs that I might not have found in the vastness of the blogosphere. (It’s not the blogosphere’s fault — it’s just that there’s so much out there, and there are all these other things people keep wanting me to do besides just reading blogs.)

For example, check out Sanitized for Your Protection, a blog about “academic life and all the adventures that accompany it” by Rebecca Montague. In a post today, On being Superwoman, she writes about the challenges of the work-life balance thing, and notes that some of the advice one gets from eminent scientists is just not that encouraging. Specifically, an essay by Lynn Margulis struck her as more of a kick in the pants than a helping hand. Rebecca writes:

In the essay, Margulis discusses her roles as a mother and wife, and how they’ve conflicted with her scientific career. She relates this to the movie “The Red Shoes”, where a prima ballerina feels forced to choose between her life as a dancer and the man she loves. Margulis opined:

At age 15 I was certain that the ballerina died because of a silly antiquated convention that insisted that it is impossible for any woman to maintain both family and career. I am equally sure now that the people of her generation who insisted on either marriage or career were correct, just as those of our generation who perpetuate the myth of the superwoman who simultaneously can do it all–husband, children, and professional career–are wrong.

…

I disagree with her blanket statement that no one can “do it all”—plenty of scientists can and do combine success in their career with very happy home lives, raising well-adjusted children within supportive partnerships. Are they the exceptions that prove the rule? … But there are definitely days when I feel like I can’t handle it, and that despite knowing intellectually that it’s impossible to be a SuperEverything all the time and something’s gotta give…and I wonder sometimes, amongst the stress couched in chocolate wrappers and stacks of papers, if she wasn’t on to something.

While I don’t want to pretend that balance is brutally hard, I can’t help but wonder if part of our problem is setting the definition of “success” too high. The thing that’s done the most to reduce my parenting-partnering-work stress is to become comfortable with the idea that “good enough” (rather than perfect) really is good enough for most contexts. Sure, this means Casa Free-Ride has more dust bunnies than it might otherwise, but I’m comfortable letting that go if I can spend more time with my kids and my better half, and if I can get papers graded without staying up until 3 AM.

At the same time, I don’t think the burden of lowering standards ought to rest solely on the people trying to combine career, partner, family, and whatever else. It’s really hard to assert, “This is sufficiently good parenting/housekeeping/devotion to my relationships,” in the face of a whole society that sets the bar several notches higher (or in the face of a differing view of what would be sufficient, for example, from the people with whom you are in those relationships). It’s even harder to confidently assert, “This is sufficiently good teaching/research productivity/service,” when your retention-tenure-promotions committees have the final say on what’s sufficient (and where they may care not a whit that you are concerned to have a life outside of work).

Sometimes having multiple facets to our lives becomes impossible because we insist on trying to live up to unrealistic standards for each of those facets. Sometimes it becomes impossible because other people, or organizations, or societal structures, impose those unrealistic standards upon us. Working on the problem from both ends seems to me like the only hope if we want to make progress here.

Although judicious use of chocolate might help, too.

Anyway, go say hi to Rebecca and jump into the conversation on her blog.