S L Forsburg (forsburg at nospamsalk.edu) writes
>an excuse for abuse, whereas I have tried to draw the distinction
>between constructive criticsim as a tool for learning
>and bloody-minded negative-for-the-heck-of it criticism.
Valerie Cardenas Nicolson <valerie at itsa.ucsf.edu>
> I think you have done a good job drawing this distinction
> in some of your later
> posts. However, from some of the earlier posts it
> sounded like you (and Deirdre and Bharathi) felt it was
> your duty to rip apart your students so they could get used
> to it.
Though I am not at all troubled to be placed with Deirdre & Susan in
this debate (I largely agree with all they've said), I should point out
that I am a post-doc, and have no students to "rip apart." My experience
in this debate comes from the point of view of a student. I like being
pressed to defend my ideas. That's how we learn more, how we learn to
think, and how we figure out what's happening in the data. I'm even
willing to put up with poorly relayed criticism, if there's something
useful burried in the criticism, and/or to search for the nugget of
useful information. And yes, I've had some things said to me that could
be considered nasty, but never received a _public_ dressing down. But,
perhaps, one of the reasons that it's never happened in public is that
I've been critisized privately, and had an opportunity to make the
corrections.
I am not willing to put up with not being taken seriously, and my worry
is that some male scientists, who do not have experience with female
scientists as colleagues, are _too_ careful in their discussions with
female scientists, to the point where you're not actually sure what
they're thinking about a piece of data. This is a form of discrimination
that will prevent you from ever being treated as a colleague. The
interaction basically means that the supervisor has decided you're not
in the running for the top of the pyramid, not worth coaching. There are
plenty of cases where people learn, when they're interviewing for a job,
or up for tenure, that there were criticisms of their work that were
never effectively delivered. But the criticisms are nevertheless used to
judge the candidate.
