“You’re not allowed bioinformatics anymore”
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“You’re not allowed bioinformatics anymore”
1–10 of 33 posts
Re: “You’re not allowed bioinformatics anymore”
#2The end of the post:
"If you are leading a project that creates huge amounts of data, instead of employing a bioinformatician in your own group, why not collaborate with an existing bioinformatics group and fund a post there?"
If that's your goal, perhaps using a less derisive and incendiary tone towards the straw man scientist in the post would've been good?
Re: “You’re not allowed bioinformatics anymore”
#3It isn't just Bioinformatics. Working at the edge of a research group doing technical work that no one else can comprehend can be very difficult and lonely. Don't underestimate the utility of a technical mentor that can understand what it is that you are doing.
The silver lining is that you can have a lot of freedom in what you learn and what you do and that you can become completely indispensable.
Re: “You’re not allowed bioinformatics anymore”
#4Is anyone else irked whenever someone uses "data" as a plural? It's an uncountable singular for chrissake!
Re: “You’re not allowed bioinformatics anymore”
#5The end of the post: "If you are leading a project that creates huge amounts of data, instead of employing a bioinformatician in your own group, why not collaborate with an existing bioinformatics group and fund a post there?" If that's your goal, perhaps using a less derisive and incendiary tone towards the straw man scientist in the post would've been good?
Strawman scientist?
> “Yes. Now, let’s see. It’s an amazing, visionary proposal, a great collaboration, and congratulations on pulling it together. I just have one question” said the director “This proposal will generate a huge amount of data – how do you plan to deal with it all?”
“Oh that’s easy!” answered Smith. “It’s all on page 6. We’ve requested funds to employ a bioinformatician for the lifetime of the project. They’ll deal with all of the data” he stated, triumphantly.
I dunno...this sounds like a problematic mindset across many, many domains in science. What makes the field of biology less prone to it?
Re: “You’re not allowed bioinformatics anymore”
#6The field is slowly coming around. I've been very harsh when peer-reviewing papers without proper code release and documentation. I know that I'm not alone. Both investigators and funding agencies are starting to understand the message. This is especially true as older folks retire and a new computationally-savvy group of folks ascends into senior positions on editorial boards, faculty review panels, and grant review panels.
Things may look messy in science, and they often are, but I'm optimistic about the future.
Re: “You’re not allowed bioinformatics anymore”
#7The end of the post: "If you are leading a project that creates huge amounts of data, instead of employing a bioinformatician in your own group, why not collaborate with an existing bioinformatics group and fund a post there?" If that's your goal, perhaps using a less derisive and incendiary tone towards the straw man scientist in the post would've been good?
It's a thought experiment, not a critique of all scientists. I can definitely see elements of that straw man in some scientists that I have met.
Re: “You’re not allowed bioinformatics anymore”
#8Is anyone else irked whenever someone uses "data" as a plural? It's an uncountable singular for chrissake!
Do you have evidence? If so, I'd like to see those data.
Re: “You’re not allowed bioinformatics anymore”
#9Is anyone else irked whenever someone uses "data" as a plural? It's an uncountable singular for chrissake!
Historically, data is the plural of datum.
Re: “You’re not allowed bioinformatics anymore”
#10The end of the post: "If you are leading a project that creates huge amounts of data, instead of employing a bioinformatician in your own group, why not collaborate with an existing bioinformatics group and fund a post there?" If that's your goal, perhaps using a less derisive and incendiary tone towards the straw man scientist in the post would've been good?
It's a thought experiment, not a critique of all scientists. I can definitely see elements of that straw man in some scientists that I have met.
Okay, but what is the point of the thought experiment? If the point is, as the addendum at the bottom indicates, to convince scientists to support a bioinformatics group rather than having their own bioinformatician, the same arguments and reasoning the post shows could've been presented without the whole "you're not allowed bioinformatics" framing device, which is certainly attention-getting but far less likely to be persuasive because you're behaving confrontationally towards the very people you're trying to persuade.