A Question for Scientists....

[Auntie Ludmilla]

Aye to that, my learned friend.

[markf]

I propose that we settle this by nominating and electing Flynn MacCallister to the Imperial Academy of Pure and Applied Sciences and Natural Philosophy. All in favour will signify by stating "aye".

A scientist is as a scientist does.

As to whether she is mad, only time will tell.

Aye to that Dr Z, and note that madness can grow on her if it is not completely evident at this time.  markf

[H. MacHinery]

I have yet to hear of any university offering a graduate studies course in Mad Science, so I don't think that a PhD is strictly necessary in this case. In fact, I suspect that a good way to make your way into a career (in either sense of the word) in Mad Science is to have your thesis proposal rejected by a regular Sane Science department. It is at that point that you wig out, scream something like "Bah! What do these blinkered, benighted fools know about weaponized budgerigars/tungsten-based life-forms/interstellar sloth tickling! I'll show them! I'll show everyone!" and disappear, only to be rediscovered some years later in a lonely laboratory in the Sangre de Cristo mountains. It is generally at this point that the hilarity ensues.

Au contraire, mon ami.

The Lunar Institute of Technology (LunaTech) offers Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate programs in Mad SCIENCE! at all their campuses (except the annex at Clavius).  Auditing the class is possible through Aldus Lamp and Interdimensional Portal.

[Flynn MacCallister]

You are absolutely correct to be considered a Scientist, and I can easily prove it.

In the USA one can work in any agency of the Federal gov't and have the job title 'Scientist' with as little as a BA/BS degree.  In fact, and perhaps distressingly, only a very small % of scientists working in the DOD, NIH, CDC, or wherever have PhDs or equivalent degrees. Here are just a few of thousands of civilian jobs in Army that have the 'Scientist' title but do not require any more than a bachelor's degree.

     > Physical Scientist (in a toxic chemical lab)
https://acpol2.army.mil/fasclass/search_fs/search_fs_output.asp?ccpo=AU&jobNum=330225&id=645303
     > Biological Scientist
https://acpol2.army.mil/fasclass/search_fs/search_fs_output.asp?ccpo=AG&jobNum=56099&id=66246
     > Environmental Scientist
https://acpol2.army.mil/fasclass/search_fs/search_fs_output.asp?ccpo=FW&jobNum=09177&id=82673
     > Computer Scientist
https://acpol2.army.mil/fasclass/search_fs/search_fs_output.asp?ccpo=EJ&jobNum=10104&id=106690

I can't comment about the 'mad' part of mad scientist, but you are a Scientist. markf

O.o Right. If the PhD falls through (I'm currently fighting for a scholarship... apparently I "never handed in" my thesis summary and publication record... I swear I did, and there's a photocopy of it attached to the copy of the forms that I kept... argh!) I know what country to move to for a job. The CSIRO have some positions where an undergrad degree with honours is sufficient, but not many... and CSIRO's employment structure is strange and difficult anyway. I haven't seen anything much on offer from anywhere else... Even RA positions are few and far between.

I think you've got the 'scientist' bit off pat (although I've no idea who Pat got it off!) however does knowing you're mad negate the madness?
I think to be on the safe side you need to get yourself a suitably hunch-backed lab assistant you can yell "THROW THE SWITCH!!" at.

Er, I've actually done that. My supervisor, who has a great sense of humour, was in the lab chatting to me while I was working, and he was standing right next to the switch I needed thrown... He's not hunchbacked, though.

As for knowing you're mad negating the madness? I don't know. I'm not sure it would...

I sort of threw the mad out as a given: those who know me in real life know I am, and some think I may be clinically so. I'm obsessive, prone to serious mood swings from hyperactive enthusiasm to an irritable sort of melancholy, full of stupid ideas that "might just work" and sometimes do... up to a point.

[zpyder]

I guess a person taking psychiatric drugs may know they are mad, and this does not make them any less mad.

Additionally it could be argued that wanting to be mad in itself is mad, and so if you want to be a mad scientist, and you are a scientist, you are a mad scientist?

[Flynn MacCallister]

My OED defines a scientist as "One who studies or practices science" so even a science student is a scientist.
But how much studying do you have to do to be mad?

(Please the the "Nutty" in my tag-line refers to the scientist, not the science!)

Fair 'nuff!

Er, is "enough that I'm well on the way to ruining my distance vision" an appropriate answer? Because I well and truly am, and the optometrist does believe that it is because of too much study and close work.

I've struggled with titles, never knowing what to say in reply to the "what do you do?" question. I want to say Ecologist, but my degree was in Environment & Coastal Management, and so ecology wasn't something that my degree covered heavily, but which I excelled in and found the greatest interest. However I have been lucky to actually have been given a title now as "Researcher in Restoration Ecology" so it's not too far off being an Ecologist. As to the scientist bit...if you do science, you could say you're a scientist in the same way that someone who works with gardens is a gardener. This of course depends on your definition of "science". To me it's research and learning/discovery. Whether this is personal research (as in that gained in education) or research of a groundbreaking matter varies between person and person.
That's the basic level.

But maybe you could argue that true scientists are the kind which are at the forefront of their field/subjects. It's one thing repeating well known experiments (as in school, college and university, or even as a lab assistant perhaps), but if nothing new is learnt or gained, it isn't necessarily 'not science', but isn't fitting the bill quite so well? To go back to the gardening analogy I guess you could argue someone with a couple of plants in pots who waters them is still a gardener, but in a true sense the person who cultivates and nurtures a plot of land from seed to cutting to maturity is more of a gardener?

In which case, indeed getting published would make you a scientist, having produced research which is both novel and useful to the field.

The madness is an entirely separate conundrum altogether.

For me I've yet to get published, though a paper is under review, with some corrections needing to be made, though the findings have been presented at a conference already so I guess they're classifiable as scientific findings. The experiment as well involved heavy metals, maggots, liquid nitrogen and carnivorous plants, and so I guess you could say that the experiment itself was quite mad

What your degree was in and what you actually do are two different matters. My uncle's degree was in economics. He's now an associate professor of history, specialising in modern European history.

Congrats on the pending publication! "Some corrections" is as good as published...

[The Kernel]

Er, is "enough that I'm well on the way to ruining my distance vision" an appropriate answer? Because I well and truly am, and the optometrist does believe that it is because of too much study and close work.

Definitely, mine went a loooong time ago (same reason) , although I prefer contact lenses these days.

PS my only publication was 1991, but I was browsing through a current journal last month and discovered I had been cited!
Yippee

[Flynn MacCallister]

I'll take the "mad" part as given, seeing as you're here.

As for the scientist part, that's all about learning how things work or how to do things that have never been learned before.  If you're doing that, you're doing science.  Which means that most university science courses teach you  about science, but they don't really involve doing all that much science. 

Publishing research papers is a measure of doing science, because most reputable places don't publish work that's been done before.  Some places will publish anything though, so not all publications count.  Still, it's probably a better measure of being a scientist than any letters after your name.  But there are plenty of people that do great science that never publish - often working for industrial research labs.

People are often snobbish about titles such as PhD; well that's just rubbish.  Having a science PhD does mean you have demonstrated you can do scientific research, but it only loosely correlates with being a good scientist.  A PhD is a sort of research apprenticeship, but some people who start a PhD already have the spark that it takes to be a great scientist, and some people who finish a PhD have never gained that spark.  They've spent several years turning the handle, directed by their professor who is hoping that they'll finally get it, but they never do.  It doesn't stop them graduating though.  To be blunt, we don't really know how to teach that spark - there are a load of ways we go about trying to encourage it, but a lot of that comes down to hoping the student learns by osmosis by observing at close hand how it's done.  Quite a lot of it involves the student unlearning bad habits learned through years of mediocre classes (such as believing what the book/paper/lecturer said), and actually learning to really think critically for his or herself.  It's especially hard to learn to think critically about your own work. 

Four of my PhD students have now graduated.  One is at professor at MIT, one is a professor at OGI, one is a postdoc at Stanford, and one is working in a top industry lab.  Those are my success stories.  In two of those, I would say the student already had that spark when they arrived.  In the other two, there was potential, but it took work for it to really burn brightly.  And then there are the two students who still don't really get it and probably never will, though they'll likely gain a PhD if they keep at it long enough.

So, are you a scientist?  Publications and qualifications are some measure, but they're flawed.  Do you have that spark of curiosity; that drive to know how something really works to the extent that you're willing to devote all your time and money and sanity to finding out?  If you do, you're a scientist (and probably quite mad too).

^___^ Thanks, prof.

While I definitely still need a lot of guidance from my supervisors, they do insist that I am one of the more independent honours students they've had, so I like to believe that I might have a future in this research thing...

When I wondered about going back to science after a hiatus of several years, I enquired about funding for a doctorate. I was advised that a far cheaper option was to conduct a research project, write it up and present it to a university for aproval. At which point I decided to bog off and set up my own business instead.... But I still consider myself a scientist. Of course, what others think of me is entirely their own problem

Ouch! That's harsh! Here, most people undertaking a PhD get paid a scholarship which is basically equivalent to a salary... Something in the ball park of AUD 20 000 a year... and no-one would turn a willing and adequate PhD candidate away, because we're much cheaper than RAs or postdocs!

[Flynn MacCallister]

I guess for some fields of science there may not be much in the way of funding, and so you could argue anyone is mad to want to pursue a career in a lower paid job?

Seems madder to spend your whole life doing something you don´t like just to get enough money to keep up with the Jones´s.

I'm with Atterton on this one.

I´d say again that if you do science(going by official definitions here, not personal ones) then you´re a scientist. As long as you don´t claim to be a scientist with a degree in the wrongly named political science or such. Also it´s not mad science if the madness is intentional.

I've never quite understood why you'd modify a perfectly valid discipline by tacking "science" on to the end... Political "Science" (which appears to be also known as Political Studies) isn't the only one out there...

[Flynn MacCallister]

What about the definition of madness?

Pilfered from wordnet search

# S: (n) lunacy, madness, insaneness (obsolete terms for legal insanity)
# S: (n) rabies, hydrophobia, lyssa, madness (an acute viral disease of the nervous system of warm-blooded animals (usually transmitted by the bite of a rabid animal); rabies is fatal if the virus reaches the brain)
# S: (n) fury, rage, madness (a feeling of intense anger) "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"; "his face turned red with rage"
# S: (n) folly, foolishness, craziness, madness (the quality of being rash and foolish) "trying to drive through a blizzard is the height of folly"; "adjusting to an insane society is total foolishness"
# S: (n) madness, rabidity, rabidness (unrestrained excitement or enthusiasm) "poetry is a sort of divine madness"

So by those varying definitions you could be a mad scientist if you classify under the many different definitions of a scientist already given, and/or:

are legally insane
are infected with a disease/parasite/virus etc which has altered your brain activity
have anger management issues
or are over enthusiastic!



I guess you could also argue that madness is defined by "normal" society. If it was the social norm for everyone to wonder around like a nutter, the 'mad' people might be what we class as sane. In which case you could also be a mad scientist if you don't fall within the socially accepted norm for scientists...?

Hahaha, if that last part is true, everyone here is mad!

I propose that we settle this by nominating and electing Flynn MacCallister to the Imperial Academy of Pure and Applied Sciences and Natural Philosophy. All in favour will signify by stating "aye".

A scientist is as a scientist does.

As to whether she is mad, only time will tell.

Aye to that, my learned friend.

I propose that we settle this by nominating and electing Flynn MacCallister to the Imperial Academy of Pure and Applied Sciences and Natural Philosophy. All in favour will signify by stating "aye".

A scientist is as a scientist does.

As to whether she is mad, only time will tell.

Aye to that Dr Z, and note that madness can grow on her if it is not completely evident at this time.  markf

Aaaw, guys, I'm touched! ^__^

[zpyder]

I guess for some fields of science there may not be much in the way of funding, and so you could argue anyone is mad to want to pursue a career in a lower paid job?

Seems madder to spend your whole life doing something you don´t like just to get enough money to keep up with the Jones´s.

I'm with Atterton on this one.

I'm not disagreeing with you, it was kind of a rhetorical question or an arguement for the sake of it. I just get the impression (from the people I've spoken to) that in general there are more people stuck in jobs they don't like because of the money, than there are people in jobs they like that don't care about the money Certainly if I had the view I posted I wouldn't have swapped my computing degree for environmental science

[Flynn MacCallister]

I guess a person taking psychiatric drugs may know they are mad, and this does not make them any less mad.

Additionally it could be argued that wanting to be mad in itself is mad, and so if you want to be a mad scientist, and you are a scientist, you are a mad scientist?

Gimme a tick to get my head around that one...

Er, is "enough that I'm well on the way to ruining my distance vision" an appropriate answer? Because I well and truly am, and the optometrist does believe that it is because of too much study and close work.

Definitely, mine went a loooong time ago (same reason) , although I prefer contact lenses these days.

PS my only publication was 1991, but I was browsing through a current journal last month and discovered I had been cited!
Yippee

WOO-HOO! XD

Actually, funny thing happened to a friend of mine in that regard (he finished his PhD last year)... He'd published his first paper in the first year of his PhD, and got his first citation about twelve months later. (Yes, he checked his Web of Science citation map every few weeks to see if he had...) He went and read the paper that had cited him... and was puzzled to find it was in a fairly unrelated area. Intrigued, he checked carefully where he had been cited in the paper... and it turned out he'd been used as a random padding-out reference, to "support" a statement that had absolutely nothing to do with his work. TT^TT

Gladly, he's the sort of guy who sees the funny side first. And it was very funny. And he did write to the editors to alert them of this. Don't know what happened after that...

As for eyesight, the optometist is still trying to "rescue" mine before it gets too bad -- I have to wear reading glasses to prevent any eyestrain that is presumably causing the deterioration of my long-distance vision. I somehow think we're going to lose that one. Going by the large difference between how close signs have to be for me to read them as compared to the distance at which my boyfriend can read them, I'm not sure that I'm going to past the eyesight test next time I renew my driver's license.

[Flynn MacCallister]

I guess for some fields of science there may not be much in the way of funding, and so you could argue anyone is mad to want to pursue a career in a lower paid job?

Seems madder to spend your whole life doing something you don´t like just to get enough money to keep up with the Jones´s.

I'm with Atterton on this one.

I'm not disagreeing with you, it was kind of a rhetorical question or an arguement for the sake of it. I just get the impression (from the people I've spoken to) that in general there are more people stuck in jobs they don't like because of the money, than there are people in jobs they like that don't care about the money Certainly if I had the view I posted I wouldn't have swapped my computing degree for environmental science

Hahaha, no, no, considering that you appeared to have done that too, (indeed, to a greater degree than I'd assumed), I didn't think you were, in any serious sense!

Coupled with your later suggestion that madness can be socially defined, I know where you're coming from.

[Sorontar]

Good luck Flynn with getting started on a PhD. I am about halfway through mine after changing topic, supervisors and campus in May. I still haven't got to the crazy experiments! But yes, it is greater job opportunities at places like CSIRO that made me start it. I just wish the scholarships were larger!

For a number of years I was employed as a research assistant in the IT Faculty on the basis of my experience and undergraduate degrees, but as far as I was concerned I was executing my linguistic skills as a computational linguist. When I filled out my tax sheets, I said my occupation was linguist, not RA.

And yes, I consider myself a scientist. Ain't interdisciplinary fields lovely.
 
I am also mad. I must have been to start a PhD in the first place!

[Flynn MacCallister]

Thanks!

*Laughs*

Mmm, well, if I can do my numbers right, the APA is enough for one person to live on... with no savings whatsoever.

Where and on what are you working, if I may ask...? (I'm at Sydney, working in applied+plasma).

[Sorontar]

Mmm, well, if I can do my numbers right, the APA is enough for one person to live on... with no savings whatsoever.

Yeah, well I am the main money earner with a small family

Where and on what are you working, if I may ask...? (I'm at Sydney, working in applied+plasma).

Monash Uni, in the IT faculty. Working on automatic profiling of mad sc^H^H^H^H^H experts. And before you ask, no, I didn't join this forum with an ulterior motive.

[Flynn MacCallister]

Mmm, well, if I can do my numbers right, the APA is enough for one person to live on... with no savings whatsoever.

Yeah, well I am the main money earner with a small family

Yeah, like I said. One person. >_o ;p

Gosh, that'd be tough... Do you at least get Austudy as well?

Where and on what are you working, if I may ask...? (I'm at Sydney, working in applied+plasma).

Monash Uni, in the IT faculty. Working on automatic profiling of mad sc^H^H^H^H^H experts. And before you ask, no, I didn't join this forum with an ulterior motive.

*Laughs* Uh-huh, sure... ;p

[Sorontar]

I'm shifting Flynn and my discussion to PM.

[Nikola Tesla]

Plenty of famous scientists who never got a PhD.

Along these lines I'd also say that plenty of people are quite mad without any sort of diagnosis, which would be the equivalent.

A degree or diagnosis only means a set of qualities that society chooses to recognize.  Titles can be misleading; everyone on our team at work, for instance, bears the title "scientist" in some capacity; a couple of our people are bipolar and take medication for that.  These are, in the most technical manner possible, mad scientists.  However, I'd only use that term for one of them; the other seems more concerned about her children's music lessons and the state of her house and lawn than in anything that could be called mad science. (She's fine at the job, though.)  Incidentally, she'd probably be quite offended at the term, as it can when used wrongly somewhat trivialize the real issues of mental illness.

Also, not everyone is as open about these conditions as these people.  You never know who might be technically "mad".

Unless you're applying for disability and/or need real help (in which case please take care of yourself and don't hesitate), it's actually easier to be a mad scientist without a diagnosis.  There's still a lot of stigma, and having well-meaning family, friends, and medical professionals getting all in your business doesn't help you with projects.

As far as science goes, there are self-taught scientists, scientists with associates' degrees through PhD, scientists with medical degrees, and so on; the "piece of paper" is important in that it qualifies you (or not) for whatever position you're seeking.  If you wish to be a tenured college professor, better go for that doctorate.  Otherwise, best to look at what degrees are being requested by people seeking candidates to do what you'd like to do, vocationally, get those, and learn whatever you feel like to do non-vocational stuff.

One major factor can apply though: there are certain tools and materials it is far easier for a degreed scientist to obtain than a non-degreed one.  Even then, one usually has to show how the requested item is relevant to one's research.

[J. Wilhelm]

Lets see...psychiatric medicine, questionable PhD paths, snobbery in academia, unemployment, mad science, hmmhmmm....yes, I seem to have found the right thread for me...

I guess for some fields of science there may not be much in the way of funding, and so you could argue anyone is mad to want to pursue a career in a lower paid job?

Seems madder to spend your whole life doing something you don´t like just to get enough money to keep up with the Jones´s.

I'm with Atterton on this one.

I'm not disagreeing with you, it was kind of a rhetorical question or an arguement for the sake of it. I just get the impression (from the people I've spoken to) that in general there are more people stuck in jobs they don't like because of the money, than there are people in jobs they like that don't care about the money Certainly if I had the view I posted I wouldn't have swapped my computing degree for environmental science

At this particular point in our economy I'd settle for ANY JOB!  

Plenty of famous scientists who never got a PhD.

Along these lines I'd also say that plenty of people are quite mad without any sort of diagnosis, which would be the equivalent.  ...it's actually easier to be a mad scientist without a diagnosis.

That depends...I would have liked someone to recognize or help me out of my depression before I "burned myself out" and a chance at a PhD.  In spite of that obstacle I settled for two Masters degrees which earned me the right to publish and disprove the basic tenets of two other students' thesis (which is mad and contradictory in purpose).   The real madness in my science was found every week during our research team meetings (fluid physics and aerospace engineering) as I spent most of that time in college trying to convince my research partners to listen to one another and my supervisors to pay any attention to their students so that funding wouldn't be shut off!  Sometimes the human equation is the real madness, not the science itself (and I don't assume any one of us was taking any psychiatric medication!)  

[Atterton]

Perhaps you´re taking the "mad" part a bit too literal. I guess I have a different idea of mad.

[Dr cornelius quack]

If I applied for this job, would I be classed as 'Mad?'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6670653/Leeds-University-advertises-for-lap-dance-research-officer.html

[Nikola Tesla]

Heh no, sorry, Dr Quack; I'm afraid that's about as sane as it gets.

[Flynn MacCallister]

Perhaps you´re taking the "mad" part a bit too literal. I guess I have a different idea of mad.

Mmm, indeed. I think I might be thinking along similar lines to yourself. Ferinstance, I don't see, say, depression or clinical anxiety as mad, and mad is often something undiagnosable, and not needing to be diagnosed. Most (experimental) scientists I know have a little bit of mad; it's that "I wonder what happens if I... Hey, actually, let's test that!" Very useful when it's a good idea, bu it creeps in even with ideas that most would dismiss as really rather stupid. Throw a bunch of at least slightly mad young scientists/science students together in the park for an afternoon, and you end up with the sort of scenario where they've already tried lining up everyone's glasses (with an appropriate prescription, of course!) to focus sunlight onto a sheet of paper (a past exam paper, actually, because it's all we had...), and are looking around for alternatives. They try various things, including using a condom full of water as a lens. (It actually worked, the paper started to smoulder, but then the condom broke from over-heating.)

Of this group, only one had any form of diagnosed metal illness, (okay, and one was a borderline-Aspie), and he was off buying ice-cream by the time we got to trying the condom-lens.

[The Kernel]

and it only ever gets worse, as my teenaged daughter said to me two nights ago while I perused a professional journal on the aetherweb after tea........
"Dad, why are you looking at pictures of brains?"
to which I replied......
"Why not, I used to keep several in jars",
that was the point at which we nearly met her tea again!