with doubt and in denial

I 'd like to take one more look at this photo taken by Julien, just to get a positive feeling. It constitutes of a rather misleading image of our institute, with lights glooming allover. What it fails to capture, what is impossible to be captured actually, is the obscurity of the greatest part of everyday work produced in this -otherwise idyllic- environment.

Yes, I am being bitter, as you might have expected by the title of this post. Over the last week I have been thinking about a great number of very interesting projects. None of them had an even distant relation to science and the only reason for me calling them "projects" is my almost complete intoxication of "scientificism" of the "geakiest" nature. Thus, what normal people simply define as "interests" or "activities" I have ended up classifying as "projects". And it is exactly this introspection that brought about the aforementioned combination of doubt and denial. But let's take it one at a time.

My increasing doubts in the whole meaning of scientific research were largely speared by a friend's and colleague's (Sylvain's) final talk before leaving the Institute, last Thursday, the most interesting and educating part of which was the following: 5 or 6 consecutive slides quoting the reviewers' comments on a paper of his, finally published in Cell (to the unaware, one of the most highly rated scientific journals in the field of what was formerly known as Biology), after two years of submissions, appeals and re-submissions. Ordinary process one might think. Until you took a look at the reviewers' comments themselves, which were usually mean and rude, most of the times impolite and -most importantly- always contradictory. When one reviewer would talk about a "revolutionary work" the other would have no restrictions in considering the "errors so serious and grave that I [he] would suggest that someone else conducted this analysis". It ended up that it was only due to the strong drive of competitive researchers to publish their work -perseverance was a term which was used more than once throughout this part of the talk- that the paper finally made it through. And, moreover, it was only Sylvain's uncontested optimism that allowed him to carry on, until the final acceptance of the paper.

My optimism, on the other hand, has its limits. And although I 'd like to think that these limits can be stretched quite a lot, they appear to be a bit stiffer when it comes to science. After all, I have been raised and educated to think of research as an objective field, where truth, constantly under the strains of scientific rigour, is safeguarded by personal opinions. How could I then explain so contradictory views on the same piece of work? It looked to me that conducting scientific research could end up being no different than putting out a musical record, publishing a novel or painting a portrait and have half of the critics receive it with glorious reviews, while the rest deny to even compare it with rubbish. I conclude that I refuse to deal with this kind of science. After all, if this is the case, why not try art instead? It's more fun, a lot more rewarding in terms of personal pleasure and by far more useful for society no matter what people may tell you. I mean how many times have you admired a nice scientific paper compared to your favourite song or book, and by the way, DO YOU have a favourite scientific paper or theory? If yes, please stop reading.

To sum up, we are into science for two main reasons. Because it is supposed to be objective and because it pays the rent. Since last Thursday I am convinced that I am only in it for the money. And with this I am also through with denial. Now let me go listen to some Led Zeppelin while taking one more look on my miserably discouraging results.