> To: womenbio at net.bio.net>> From: "Laura A. Cox" <LCOX at icarus.sfbr.org>
> I just finished reading Anne Sayre's book "Rosalind Franklin and
> DNA". This was truly an eye opening experience. I highly recommend all
> women in science (not just genetics) to read this book. Reading this book
> made me see some "women in science" issues quite clearly and I would like
> to pose some questions for discussion to this group......
>.....(summary snipped for space).......
> What is the message? What is revealed by combining the Watson's
> perspective presented in the "Double Helix" and Sayre's presentation in
> "Rosalind Franklin and DNA"? Towards the end of Anne Sayre's book, she
> writes about her interviews with a number of graduate students who read
> "Double Helix". To them, the take home message was that if Nobel Laureates
> can take someone else's data and use it, then that must be o.k. Not the
> type of thing we want to hear in a profession based on open discussion and
> exchange of information.
Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens all the time. Big guys
will phone up little guys and say, "I am working on what you are.
You can collaborate with me, or I will blow you away." The same
paper with a Little Guy's name on it will have a lot harder time
seeing publication in a glossy journal than a Big Guy's paper,
even if the Big Guy's paper is wrong or sloppy. But he's a Big Guy,
so he must be right. (As someone Little who has spent the last
couple of years arguing with journal editors, I feel this double
standard very strongly. Peer review only works if you are truly peers.)
> [Franklin's] "mistake" was being out of the loop, she was outside the
> male-science society and their exchange of information. That removed her
> >From controlling the use of her data or even knowing that her data was
> being discussed and used by scientists outside of her own laboratory.....
> Now I clearly see that when you have no input/control, you may not even
> have an opportunity to fight back. And this isn't just a women's issue. It
> reflects a problem to those not in the loop, or not in control; for
> example, post-doc/grad student vs. P.I.
Academic science is filled with this sort of abuse. While it is fashionable
on this newsgroup to cast the division as lying between lab memeber and
PI, trust me that it is vastly worse between junior, untenured, ie
powerless junior faculty member and the upholders of the status quo,
the senior faculty in your institution and your field.
> Previous posts to this board have discussed honesty vs. naivet=E9 in
> laboratory courses and in research projects. I think this touches
> peripherally of an important aspect of scientific research, one that must
> be considered when selecting graduate student advisors, post-doc advisors,
> or even senior faculty collaborators. Will you get credit for your work? If
> you do the bench work under the guidance of an advisor, how much is yours
> vs. the advisor. Who controls the data, you or your advisor? Who sees your
> data? Will you get credit for your work? How much of your work in a
> combined project must be part of the published data for you to be an
> author? And how do you discuss these issues at the beginning of a project
> or collaboration without being labeled as a "trouble maker" etc.
Well, it's as well to shape rules at the beginning. I have talks
periodically with my lab over this: lab books stay in the lab even
after you leave (actually, that is a funding agency rule, and recommended
in this era of scientific misconduct, in case there is ever a question).
I have established guidelines to authorship, although the final decision
is obviously my responsibility, which are based on the level of contribution
and how integral that contribution is to the central work of the paper.
Hopefully though they see that I am fair in how credit has been
distributed in the past, and they trust me to continue being fair in the
future.
> The other issue touched upon is when you knowingly share your data,
> how do you know that you will be included in the ongoing work? Or that you
> will be duly credited for your work?
You don't, unfortunately; you hope, and maybe you get an unpleasant
surprise when you open the journal and find yourself relegated to the
acknowledgements or even ignored entirely. Happened to me as a
student. Not nice.
> In a recent issue of the "Scientist" I saw the latest inductees
> into the National Academy of Science. Not many women in the group. How much
> can you control in your scientific career if you are not in a position of
> control?
> Hopefully some of the more senior scientists in this group can
> respond to these questions and present some advise.
(It appears that being a PI, I qualify as a more "senior scientist".)
There is a lamentably small number of women in the NAS; well, of course
that tends to be an age-associated issue as well, but my observation
suggests that it won't change. Those who have benefited by the status
quo tend to support it and thus exclude those who don't fit. Women
do not fit. We are ignored by all the standards the gatekeepers
use: we don't have the connections to get as many speaking engagements
or grants or glossy publications. We've discussed here how few women
there are at meetings. We are in many respects the invisible scientists.
Hardly a surprise that the gatekeepers don't see us and instead
reward their clones.
On another topic, has anyone read Dr Frances Conroy's book, which is
called somthing like "Walking out on the boys"?
--
-susan
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Molecular Biology and Virology Lab
The Salk Institute, La Jolla CA
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