The Era of the Rockstar Scientist

“Nature, Science and Plos One are some of the Journals I will never publish in”, this was overheard at a conference for scientists of a specific profession. The reasoning was, what we do is not “sexy science”. It is however true that we live in an era of the rockstar scientist with groundbreaking discoveries, world class labs and hundreds of publications, but alas, this is reserved for the few.

In the last few hundred years Science in its entirety has gone forward in leaps and bounds. We hear of names like Darcy and other famous dead Engineers and Scientists who spearheaded work in their fields of interest.

In more recent times we find that oil rich countries have paid some of the best Researchers in the world in order to help them build Universities. These Institutes are associated with top schools in the United States and Europe, and in turn attract the best students, research engineers and scientists to do some of the best work in the world, in the best equipped labs. This is once again for a select few rockstar scientists and Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest” comes to mind. I have my reservations and opinions with regards to this theory and its relevance in this scenario, as it seems as if it is survival of the fittest mouthpiece.

Standing on the outside it does seem as if some of the sciences are going through a major “flavour of the week” era. Materials, Nano science and some of the biological sciences are a few of these ice creams on the top of everybody’s wish list. I say wish list because I wish I was in one of these fields. Once again it is limited to a few rockstars who are making strides in their respective fields. A co-worker calls them the “mafia” of their field who only work with, publish and cite one another’s work. A recent paper on the flawed nature of the peer review system for journals also alludes to this.

This is not a piece of hate mail. Some would think that up to this point it could be considered a personal attack, like a “I bet you think this song is about you “ scenario. A wise man once said “Do not believe everything you think “

This is merely a call for acknowledgement of good science, whether it be from that Professor who has 300 papers to his name or that recently minted PhD graduate who had limited support in his efforts to produce his work. It is also a call for publishing work that adds value and not just for the sake of publishing and putting another notch on your belt. This is a call for a return to the science and not for placing the rockstars on pedastals. We should really stop fooling ourselves (http://www.nature.com/news/how-scientists-fool-themselves-and-how-they-can-stop-1.18517)

No animals were harmed during this research, egos on the other hand may have been bruised. This work was not peer reviewed and the data, which is purely observational, will not stand up in a court of law. I would like to thank all of the great Professors who I have referenced but never met. A special vote of thanks goes to those Professors with loads of publications which I have read but still do not entirely understand.