An article from The Economist about America and Immigration

I thought this was a really fantastic article, in this week's issue of the Economist. I think it is actually available to read without a subscription.

This struck so many chords with me, as someone who has waited endlessly for a piece of paper, who has been greeted by rudeness at every re-entry post and has decided that it is not worth it to let one's life be ruled by forms, bureaucracy and more pieces of paper.

I am very grateful indeed for the opportunities that America has provided me, I have realy enjoyed living here, still do. But I don't want to put up with the hassles of being an immigrant any more, and am therefore seriously considering moving back to my dear chaotic country and hacking my way through life there.

My favourite parts, quoted:


A country that has been built on immigrant labour is now building fences and demonising foreigners, almost as if it did not need them.



and



There are still good reasons for immigrants to put themselves through all this. America has the world's greatest universities and biggest opportunities for the truly talented. But American officialdom needs to stop thinking that people will tolerate any humiliation to work there. Uprooting yourself from your native culture is difficult enough, without having to deal with unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles. America also needs to realise what will happen if the immigrants stop coming. University departments will grind to a halt. High-tech companies will be starved of personnel. New York could find itself eclipsed by London as the world's financial hub.

On Race and Being a Scientist

Skookumchick over at Rants of a Feminist Engineer had posted on the subject of race in science. Taking my cue from her, here I go.

I have to say that because of my nationality, race and nationality are rather inextricably linked in my thinking, so I will declare right now that I use the two to refer to the same thing. Sorry.

I am Indian, as may have become obvious to those of you who read my blog and notice my stubborn use of -ou- spelling. I grew up in India and came to the US to do my Ph.D., not I am a post-doc. I've been a foreign student, a non-resident alien, then a resident alien and now am a temporary worker.

There are so many stereotypes associated with various races and their work ethic/abilities/social skills. I'm not trying to offend anyone, but here's a list of some I have heard: Indians are bright and lazy, lack social skills and speak English with a funny accent; Chinese people are incredibly hard-working, paranoid and competitive and do not speak English well at all; Japanese people are eternally polite to your face but do exactly whatever they please anyway, the French are clubby and snobbish, the Germans are correct, humorless and boring, Americans are crazy workaholics with an alien literal sense of humour.

My accent in English could easily be American, in fact I get judged for that quite a lot in the Indian community. One of the two most paranoid, competitive people I have met was indeed Chinese, the other was American. However, the single most helpful technician I have ever known is Chinese, she is a darling. Two of the most intelligent-and yes, sarcastic- people I know are American and I enjoy and respect their insights and judgment tremendously. One of my dearest mentors in grad school was Japanese and he was always communicative and sharing with me. Many of my friends and my best colleagues have been, and are, French. Based on friends again, I think Germans are the most modest, open-minded people I know and amazing friends in the bargain.

I think that it is important to discuss issues of race and representation but one always risks falling into the trap of letting stereotypes do the deciding. However hard one tries, if one makes race a central issue one will end up classifying people one meets based on one's perception of their countrymen's qualities. If one is luckky and honest, one may overcome these stereotypes and make real connections to people despite all, but how often is one lucky or honest?

I resist concentrating on race for many reasons, a big one, and possibly an ignoble one, is because I do not want to be associated with the stereotype. I have known incredibly lazy Indian people, I have also had Indian colleagues who shamelessly made use of a boss's niceness and took way too much advantage. I am not like that, and it galls me no end to have colleagues who "have given my countrymen a bad name". I have also met hard-wroking like-minded Indians whom it is a privilege to associate myself with. However, I do not speak to Indians at work in our native tongue, if it is the same, or the national language because I think it is wholly inappropriate to use a language that other people do not understand in a workplace. It makes people hostile, which is completely understandable. Over coffee, I'd love to gab in Hindi, but in lab? No. I won't do it.

I resist emphasizing my race for another reason: I have worked so hard to be thought of as "just" a scientist, not an "Indian scientist", or the "Indian girl in that lab". People have actually called me by another, very different, name because there was another Indian in our lab with that name. The foreign student, the foreign post-doc...I think I have managed to shed all these labels, not because I am not proud of being Indian or because I am embarrassed to be considered foreign, but because I want to be thought of primarily as a scientist. I don't want Indian to be my defining professional label, just like woman is not my primary label of choice, more on that later. I feel that as a foreign post-doc, race and nationality are such dominant issues in the rest of my life- getting fingerprinted upon entry into the US, needing authorization to travel, my boyfriend shaving off his beard because he is Indian and will probably have trouble flying with a beard because of what he looks like. I don't want my race or nationality to be a central issue in my professional life as well.

I am joyously Indian and fiercely proud to be so. I am also a scientist and proud of that. I am not necessarily an Indian scientist is all.

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Second Scientiae Carnival

Sorry for the day's delay, the second Scientiae carnival is up at Propter Doc's. More on Science, Women and other things. Some great reading, enjoy!

The Appearance of Femininity: A Crock!

Judith Warner, one of my favourite columnists at the New York Times has posted this incredible column today on Times Select. (Needs a subscription)
It's about how Hillary Clinton might lose out on female votes because her appearance of femininity is less than sympathetic. The word Ms. Warner uses to describe the quality she lacks is "schmaltz", it's perfect. She really gets it right, with her oh-so-well done send up of the desired image of women in politics. Seriously, this is one thing that really bothers me: many women in positions of power take flak for being "manly" or aggressive, but if they were charming and feminine they take flak for milking their femininity. Personally, the latter bother me more, more on that later!

Why should Senator Clinton have to coo and cry? She should be judged on her capability and her political skills, which are considerable. I'm not saying she is perfect or should have a free run for President, in fact I cannot vote in American elections and on principle am uncomfortable about participating in public political discussions. This though, is more universal. Why is there this requirement for softness and empathy from female politicians more than male? And when softness and empathy, and tears! good lord tears! come through, the women is seen as a good woman but not good enough to be Commander in Chief. It's ridiculous.

Does Your Motivation Make You a Better Scientist?

This post is inspired by an article in the New York Times Magazine on Sunday the 4th of March. The article was about the evolution of God, and there were many things about the article that drove me nuts, but I'm only going to mention one them here, one that inspired this post.

The author of the article, in the process of analyzing the evolutionary imperative for the existence of religion and God, quotes a scientist named David Sloan Wilson, an "adaptationist", citing his work for one side of her argument. Whether I agree with him or not is immaterial, I found this paragraph, directly quoted in Robin Marantz Henig's own words, really disturbing.

"Wilson’s father was Sloan Wilson, author of “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,” an emblem of mid-’50s suburban anomie that was turned into a film starring Gregory Peck. Sloan Wilson became a celebrity, with young women asking for his autograph, especially after his next novel, “A Summer Place,” became another blockbuster movie. The son grew up wanting to do something to make his famous father proud.

“I knew I couldn’t be a novelist,” said Wilson, who crackled with intensity during a telephone interview, “so I chose something as far as possible from literature — I chose science.” He is disarmingly honest about what motivated him: “I was very ambitious, and I wanted to make a mark.” He chose to study human evolution, he said, in part because he had some of his father’s literary leanings and the field required a novelist’s attention to human motivations, struggles and alliances — as well as a novelist’s flair for narrative."

Maybe I am being unreasonable, but I find it very hard to believe on someones science when their motivation is that they wanted to be famous because their father was. I mean no personal disrespect to the Dr. Wilson in the article, maybe I misunderstand what the author was trying to represent about him. In any case, the issue still stands, does one's motivations for doing science colour one's science?

There are many many reasons why one chooses to do research, a keenly developed sense of curiosity, idealism, wanting to contribute to the world, even lack of other options, which happens oftener than one would like to believe. And of course, motivations change as one's thinking evolves, as one grows up. Idealism becomes less important, the need for a secure job kicks in, pragmatism trumps curiosity in one's choices of projects etc. If fame and success is one's primary imperative though, doesn't that lead one down a road of great pressure and even greater disappointment? Does one pick projects simply because they will get one attention? Does one feel greater temptation to wrongly interpret or over-interpret one's data if the perception of eventual success is the primary driving force?

Allegra Goodman has written a phenomenal book "Intuition", sort of on the subject of what drives scientists to do the things they do and how pressure and success can tempt the most high-minded scientist away from their usual code of research. I am aware that no one really does science mainly for the good of the human race or the purity of thought involved in solely intellectual pursuits (Of course I do, but... :) ) and that idealism rarely has a place in the rat race of research today. However I cannot believe it is good for the scientific establishment as a whole if our only motivation to do science was glory and success, sweet as they may be, in fact I think that would be really dangerous.

What do you think? Am I just over-reacting?

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Raindrops on Roses...

Here are my answers to five questions from Propter Doc.


1. What is the best part of being a postdoc?

When you design an experiment in grad school, you either present it in lab meeting as future directions or you do it and then present the results. It gets ripped apart, gently for the most part during my Ph.D. experience. Holes, missing controls, problems, inconsistencies etc. Now, when I design an experiment, I can often see what's wrong with withing half an hour of staring at the layout. I find the holes, I can anticipate the missing controls. The flip side of course is the the endless circle of caveat one finds oneself in, as no experiment in ever perfect theoretically and one eventually just has to do it and find out. But its a nice feeling to have acquired a skill like that, albeit a skill that only a few people can understand and appreciate.

2. What makes you happy?

India, food and happy plants. In no particular order. Green leaves, the smell of onions in oil just warming up, warm bread, crowds of people in the street, warm sunny mornings when the light pours in through every window by 6.30 am, old shady dusty trees, stray dogs of every shape size and colour and food everywhere!

3. What do you miss most about being a child?

The way time stretched out indefinitely and moved so slowly. It was intensely aggravating while a child, but I miss that now in the middle of harried days and "Oh my God, I can't believe it's already March" moments. I would love to have back that sense of time as a vast space, so big and endless and comforting.

4. What is your favorite book and why?

Oh no, I dread this question! How can one have only one? I always answer favourite book/song/movie questions with top ten lists. Sigh, anyway, shall try to narrow it down.
Thinks. thinks. Whirls. One always wishes the answer to this question to be profound and true and perfectly calibrated so as to reveal your soul and the exact degree of depth and sensitivity that abides there. Anyway.
Cliched as it is, I would have to go with Pride and Prejudice. I read it every six months. I read it when I am homesick or unhappy, it makes me feel better. I read it just because I feel like. I take it everywhere, in fact I believe I own three copies in three different locations around the world. I made the Boy read it. It's an old friend by this time.

5. If you weren't a scientist, what would you be?

I would be a writer and working for an NGO dealing with public health issues, that's what I would be doing. Which is not yet out of the question, but depends on luck and ability :). I applied for science writing jobs right out of grad school and was told that post-doc experience was required and most NGOs want M.D.s. All shall accomplished however, with persistence and faith!

Oh that was fun, thank you Propter Doc! If anyone else wants questions, do comment and I'll send you some.

Abolish Tenure?

Just read this through a link on Uncertain Principles' blog at ScienceBlogs. Steven Levitt, famous for "Freakonomics" proposes the abolition of tenure on his blog on the grounds of it being an economically unsound idea. What do you think?

I agree with one of the commenters on Levitt's blog, that one does need breathing room to let a project come to fruition, especially in the life sciences. Is competition and competitiveness everything? But there are so many new Ph.D.s who want jobs! How do you accommodate them all?

Why Sould Postdocs be Compensated Better?

Let me begin by saying that I do want to be compensated better! Which is, in part, why I spend much time and effort on looking for and applying to fellowship programs that accept international applicants. They are few and far between and involve jumping through bureaucratic hoops and harassing professors for their recommendations, humbly yet firmly. Not much fun.

The other night, at a dinner party where most of the guests just happened to be postdocs, the topic came up, as it is wont to do at gatherings of this kind. Some of us, self included, were moaning about the exigiencies of postdoctoral finances. Upon which one of the guests, who I don't know well, else I would credit her more openly, made an absolutely unanswerable point. She said that if the primary criterion for deciding appropriate recompense was to what extent one's work made another's life better, we should shut up and take it (I paraphrase). Plumbers fix the pipes, construction workers make the roads driveable, software engineers are responsibel for the smooth convenience and entertainment we expect from our phones, televisions and internet and financial planners make money for people. Postdoc research can lead to cures for cancer, but what most of us do is accumulate information piece by little piece. One day this whole body of information will coalesce into something really useful for mankind: this I truly believe, else I would just up and go! But we are little tiny cogs in a great gigantic machine, and should we all expect greater remuneration for the future possibility of something useful from that machine?

Okay, she really had me there. And I have to agree, in all conscience. If one chooses this life, then one has to deal with the consequences of it. The real sticking point for me though, comes from the incessant glorification of research as a career that is so prevalent today. Universities in the US recruit students! All the time. Any of you who work in a Biology department on a US campus in February or March have seen Recruitment. So many students, beeing wined and dined and wooed and told that the career they are choosing is so worthwhile and so important and that they will enter an elite by doing a Ph.D. in Biololgy. Does no one tell them that their chances of getting a fancy academic job are very very slim? That even the brightest among them, and they are bright, needs a healthy dose of luck to make it big? That hard work is not necessarily productive? It frustrates me to the point of screaming to see ambitious young people with sharp minds descend into cynicism and perennial whining. What a waste! By all means, let people come in to labs and do research. Please, however, do not make it out to be this glamorous career with so much success and glory in it. The first three things any potential Ph.D. candidate should be told are these:
1.Assuming there are 200 US universities with Biology departments that accept Ph.D. students. Assume also, an average entering class size of 20 per university and an avergae faculty size of about 40 PIs. So about 4000 Biology Ph.Ds are awarded every year? Make that 2000 with attrition etc. 2000 US Biology Ph.Ds a year. Add another 2000 postdocs coming in to the country from other countries. 4000 postdocs a year who want to be PIs. And 40X200=8000 tenured positions avaiable? What are you realistic chances of getting an academic job? Really.
2. If you don't get that fabulous CV and aren't really eligible for an academic position, and/or you just don't get a buzz out of lab work anymore, consider this: how marketable is your degree? Not very. Nearly every career alternative requires training in another discipline or even another degree.
3. Even if you work hard and think well, you will need Luck. Very very essential.

Now go forth and do research with my goodwill!

Just be aware. That's all I want to say, be aware, make the decision knowing what a risk you're taking. Then look at your bank account, sigh and deal.
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