Christian Siadjeu

Not able to produce “favorable results” in the lab? You are a “loser”. Stay in the shadows of those who can bring cool data to the Big Prof. Sounds familiar? It's not only about this case at Stanford. It's about academic culture in general: - Keep pushing for metrics. Quantity over quality. Look for flashy conclusions. - Skyrocket your profile. Build your research enterprise. Outcompete everyone in your field. Isn’t it how academia works today? 🤨 ▫️ Albert Einstein remarked: “An academic career, in which a person is forced to produce scientific writings in great amounts, creates a danger of intellectual superficiality”.  Peter Higgs said he could NOT replicate his discovery in today’s academic climate: “Not enough peace and quiet in the present sort of climate to do what I did in 1964”. ▫️ Wonder about the results of this “culture”? 1. Thousands of FAKE research articles are published. 30% of all scientific articles may be fake products of paper mills. There is even a special lengthy page on Wiki called “Replication crisis”. 2. Life-draining tenure requirements that fuel the rat race. Why? To ensure the university ranking and recognition is going up. 3. Most PhDs don’t see themselves in science anymore. In many places, you are not required to be creative and knowledgable. Instead, you should demonstrate you can win a race. Everyone knows it but few things change. ▫️ I am happy that Stanford showed courage and carried out investigation. It is an excellent example of HOW to react to manipulated papers and unhealthy lab dynamic. It's just another reminder that: We should STOP focusing on taking “professional selfies”. We should STOP trading our passion for glory. Focus on science instead #AcademicChatter #AcademicTwitter #phdchat