I think both studies (maybe they’re the same) are, as sociology, pretty dubious and hazy. Do you put the emphasis on the competition or the falloff? As for correlation, I’d consider the big win in one’s romantic life to be marriage and reproductive success, which is antithetical (by my cited article) to the big wins in academics.
And again I say that the whole idea that science and math achievements are supposed to impress women is bullshit. Scientists and mathematicians know going into it that women in this society are impressed by money and power, not academic achievements.
Just out of curiosity, did you recently get an invitation from the Science Advisory Board to fill out a questionaire on this very subject? I find the timing rather uncanny, because I was going to start a thread about it, and what promted me was the survey.
Either way, I have made no “great contributions” as far as I can tell, and I’m now 34. Sure I’ve authored a few papers and given a few talks, etc., but my accomplishments are pretty damn modest if you put next to a Watson or a Crick. I don’t even have a Nature or a Science paper, so I’m probably doomed at this point. I’d like to think that my best years are ahead of me, but the cold hard reality is they probably aren’t; which means I’m a bit player, and always will be.
I guess it’s some consolation to know that most of us are, and that’s OK. Just because we’re old doesn’t mean we should throw in the towel and surrender ourselves to the glue factory. Yeah, maybe I’ll never do anything earthshaking, but if I contribute even a little to the wealth of human understanding of the natural sciences, I think that’s something to be proud of, and I would never discourage anyone from trying to do the same, no matter their age. Do we do experiments because we want to be famous? Well, maybe some of us do, but I never did (which is good, because I’d be damn dissapointed by now if that was my real goal). So, ok, I’ll never do “great things”. Am I worthless because of this? I think this is something anyone must consider when they ask questions about how their age affects their work. If all anyone cares about when entering a science career is winning the Nobel Prize, well, prepare to be crushed is all I can say. Maybe I’m not so bright, but I am interested, and always will be. That’s as important as greatness, if you ask me.
Of course, maybe it’s all just sour grapes because I’m not Great, but that’s what I tell myself anyway.
In my field, I would point to Seymour Benzer of Cal Tech. He is still running an active research laboratory, still publishing very well (his lab had a pretty cool Cell paper last year), and is 83. He contributed some of the earliest, most fundamental research in genetics in the 1950s, and was really the first scientist to start taking apart behavior on a genetic basis.
It is not unusual in biology for people over 50 to be producing at or near their most productive levels. Francis Crick was academically active at the Salk Institute until his death. At my school, there are several faculty members in their late 60s with active, bustling research labs. Many of these tend to be heads of departments, but at my school most department heads still run labs.
As Bob55 says, the PI isn’t always the one making the logical leaps. But there is a lot of synthesis and a lot of innovation that comes directly from the PI. If the person is training graduate students, PIs initiate and guide projects in a majority of cases.
Funny. I thought showing supporting evidence to be hazy or open to various interpretations, thus casting doubt on the consequent was a valid form of argument. His cite (or, more properly, lack thereof) was a sound-bite condensation of sociological research, which is dubious at best IMHO.
The conclusion is Neo-Freudian at best and sexist at worst. I’ve known many young women who produce work every bit as good as my male colleagues’ without the benefit of high levels of testosterone. Further, Ockham’s Razor can be brought to bear: a simpler explanation for more revolutionary discoveries being made by young (and often unmarried) people (not specifically men, except for an accident of Western society) is that as people age they generally take on more responsibility in the society and don’t have that time and energy to devote themselves so single-mindedly to their work.
Again, that means he was in his 30s when he contributed that early, fundamental research. It’s been established that older academics often still do great things, but most often (and almost exclusively in mathematics and physics) only if they made a landmark when they were younger.
Mathochist
I think the research he did in the 1970s was just as fundamental. The parallel between both of them – his bacteriophage genetic mapping work in the 1950s and his genetic analysis of behavior in the 1970s – was that they were both brand spanking-new fields. Benzer still works in genetic control of behavior, but so does everybody and their brother. He also does some work on aging; no comment on the psychological reasons behind that work. I think there are very few areas where one can make those huge leaps, because we know so much more now. Some of his new papers could be breakthroughs, we just have to see what comes of them in the long run.
Cell is the top tier of journals in biology. Some may argue that it is the best for long articles. Only Nature and Science papers rank higher, and the chancec of getting a Nature article which is nearly as long as a Cell paper is miniscule (around one published on biology every month). In the past 5 years, Benzer has published 15 times (and only one of these is a review) – 3 times in Science, once in Cell, once in Neuron, 5 times in PNAS, and once in Current Biology. These are all top- and top-second tier journals. He still does as good work as anybody, is more productive than most, and is still a leader of a field. If there were a huge breakthrough in the field, and it came from his lab, I would not be surprised in the slightest.
I didn’t say it wasn’t. Nobody is contesting that academics can do great things later in life. My position is that it happens almost exclusively when the academic in question had already done something great earlier in life.
Actually, wait. I think I said this already. It was in the post you just replied to.
Yeah you’re a joker alright. You seem to be consistently hazing over my argument in favour of a red herring.
And then come full circle with this tripe.
OK, let’s do this again.
In post #16Eric II makes a few assertions. These are:
“…most great science discoveries and artistic achievements (are) done by young men…”
“It was postulated that the drive to impress their mate to be was the real spark behind many great breakthroughs.”
In post #17 you then state:
“Funny, the study cited in this article says just about the exact opposite.”
And provide the aforementioned site (which as you correctly note, Eric II did not).
My point was… and please read this carefully (I in NO WAY mean this to be construed as condescension)… THE SITE THAT YOU PROVIDED ACTUALLY SUPPORTED Eric II’s assertions, whereas you stated in post #17 that it did not.
I SHOWED YOU WHY THIS WAS THE CASE IN POST #19.
Now you seem to claim that you provided this cite (in post #17) to show how “hazy” his assertions were, because you do not agree with it.
Please forgive me if I consider this TOTAL BULLSHIT AND A COP-OUT. First of all, if you are arguing against Eric II’s assertions, why provide a site that supports them? Why not just state your arguments clearly?
You did not do this. You merely provided a cite and then replied “this article says just about the exact opposite” - which it clearly does NOT. Go back to post #17. You wrote nothing about your reservations concering this article. You merely stated that it was in contrast to Eric II’s assertions - which is INCORRECT.
