My PI wont follow the evidence - (Jul/29/2009 )

ok - try this george - if your the only person in the room who understands what you are saying does it mean...

A ) everyone else is a moron and should listen harder to you
B ) you obviously have to repeat it slower and LOUDER
C ) they are all so stupid they DESERVE to be insulted
D ) your making no sense

dom

give you a hint - you dont need to be deep and meaningfull to be right

Dominic on Aug 6 2009, 08:15 AM said:

George's point, if I may, is that errata and arrogance are a scientists worst enemy. If the PI is incorrect, as was Pauling, publishing his errors (in this situation read: falsehoods or "forced" data) will eventually relegate him to obscurity and dishonor among his peers. Even Pauling's great contributions to the field did not elevate him in the scientific world. Pauling was sure enough of himself that he wouldn't listen to Chargaff, nor will this PI likely listen to his lab tech, and if a distinguished scientist like Chargaff couldn't make Pauling see the light, a lab tech, who would be unable to offer the same level of rigorous discussion, has little hope. In the outside chance that the tech is right, the PI will eventually be his own undoing.

Dr Teeth on Aug 6 2009, 09:30 AM said:

Not for nothing, but I'd call winning two Nobel prizes fairly elevated...

at this point. . . mmm, do we know what Ejim suggested and PI refused?

HomeBrew on Aug 6 2009, 06:25 PM said:

good catch HomeBrew , two Nobel prizes in two different fields and not shared with anybody else..not bad for someone who's been relegated to obscurity...

casandra on Aug 7 2009, 12:03 AM said:

Well, thank you for majoring in the minors... What about the meat of the point, i.e. that the PI who won't listen will be his own undoing?

Also, not for nothing, but a Nobel Peace Prize hardly counts as elevation in the scientific community and while Pauling did receive a Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1954, this was less than a year after Watson and Crick's publication on the DNA double helix. While it may be incorrect to say that Pauling became obscure (though ask non-scientists who Watson and Crick were, then ask about Pauling...), later in life, Pauling's work went largely ignored (see his work on nuclear structure). Think of how different his life and work may have been had he proposed the correct structure in his PNAS paper in 53. Also, I'd bet that ejim's PI is not the next Pauling.

Dr Teeth on Aug 7 2009, 10:21 AM said:

Well, thank you too, Dr Teeth, for keeping the ball rolling and flying . Is Pauling really that minor?

And I did get your point i.e., the PI’s (in this case, Pauling) arrogance is the cause of his downfall. But then I wonder why George brought this issue up? If at all, it weakens his argument because despite all the experience, knowledge and education a PI has…even if he could “peer-review or generate/report/argue contrary data and opinion in scientific fora”, he could be as wrong as anybody else, just like the rest of us in the minor leagues. So he shld be flexible enough to consider other points of view even from the tech or new students.

I know that getting a Nobel Prize is not the pinnacle of achievement in science or the other fields. It may not elevate your status but I still think it counts and at the very least, it distinguishes you from the rest of the pack. Besides, it isn’t everyday that you get dolled up to receive the award from the King and Queen of Sweden plus take home a million bucks. Sure most everyone knows Watson and Crick but the laymen would probably recognise more the recipients of the Peace prize than Chemistry or Economics…so I guess it all depends.

Dr Teeth on Aug 7 2009, 10:21 AM said:

You may have missed it, but in the very first reply to the original post by ejim, I said:

HomeBrew on Jul 29 2009, 02:31 PM said:

Isn't this exactly the same thing as "the PI who won't listen will be his own undoing"?

I think what threw many of us off was that GeorgeWolff *seemed* to be arguing that ejim contain his hubris and do what the PI says:

GeorgeWolff on Aug 4 2009, 07:28 AM said:

He does, however, in prior posts and in this post, encouraged ejim to:

GeorgeWolff on Aug 4 2009, 07:28 AM said:

and has further encouraged ejim to do the definitive experiment or gather further evidence to convince his skeptical employer. But the "Elitist or not" phrases made many of us think that GeorgeWolff was arguing that ejim should just accept his PIs judgment and move on.

Thus it seemed somewhat incongruent when GeorgeWolff posted the Linus Pauling anecdote, for this is clearly an example of the opposite situation: the senior should have listened to his junior colleague.

Not directly on topic, but as some encouragement to the OP, I know of a tech who has a first authored publication in Nature Genetics. Of course, his PI was probably most supportive of him, but it goes to show that you don't have to be a PhD/grad student to publish well, or publish at all.

I agree with this up to some point. If you were a PhD student I would say go for it, it's your degree, you need to publish and graduate as soon as u can. Many of my friends have had to do their own projects that were not liked by their PI's just because they were not projects that at the time could see profitable or interesting. At the end those side projects were the ones who worked and gave them publications and of course helped them graduate. I think that if u are a technician, don't even worry about it, just do the job ur PI wants and forget about the rest. However, your scientific spirit tells me you should get a PhD.
Good Luck!

leelee on Jul 30 2009, 08:26 PM said: