Niceness is inherent to being a good scientist
Tags: Conferences, manners, networking, Niceness, politeness, sciencePosted in Conferences, PhD life, Tips
I’m at a conference and I have noticed something that I have seen before: the top scientists are surprisingly nice. Now I wasn’t quite completely sure if this was true but at least some of my friends thought the same thing. Here’s is what happened. I’m at a conference that is a bit outside of my normal field, so I do not know most people but I certainly saw a lot of famous names of people who have published major papers in the field. I would muster my courage and just walk up to these famous people and say something pleasant to break the ice. Their reply typically is very courteous and you can see their eyes flitter to your conference badge immediately followed by a question like “where is Strathclyde?” Typically, you end up talking very pleasantly about science. In different situations I have found that top scientist tend to reply to your emails quickly, are happy to send you reprints (quickly), are happy to tell you about what they are doing.
There are multiple conclusions you could draw. Perhaps nice people become top scientists. Or perhaps scientists, once they reach the top, become nice. Or perhaps in order to become a top scientist, one has to display a certain degree of niceness. My feeling is that a good scientist has to network, get to know a lot of people and be known by a lot of people, in order to flourish. It is very easy to make jokes about world-shy nerdy scientists locked up in some basement lab but in reality scientist have to be very sociable and amicable. Thus, despite the fact that scientists have to be rude, they also have to be nice.
6 Aug 2009 0:24, Mirjam
Probably all of your conclusions are true: there are many different personalities and many different ways to the top. Some top scientists are nice and some are assholes; I know examples of both kinds. In general people like attention and being flattered, though, so chances are that if you approach someone as ‘an expert’ they will give you some sort of response (e.g. your example of reprints, explaining what they do, answering questions). If this sounds blunt, then read ‘The moral animal. Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology’ by Robert Wright. It may not all be true, but is quite interesting anyway, because it gets you to think about these things in a different way. Personally, I think that not burning your bridges is an easier (and nicer) strategy to the top, but rude slave drivers and arrogant bastards sometimes are remarkably succesful too.
6 Aug 2009 18:06, Mirjam
One more small comment: ‘successful scientist’ (within the present day framework) may be a more proper choice of words than ‘good scientist’. Newton was a pretty good scientist, but seems to have had some dark sides to his personality, making him less than nice.
7 Aug 2009 12:23, Klaas Wynne
Don’t misunderstand me: I don’t think these successful scientists are just nice for being nice (although some are) but rather that they are working on their social network. I do know some ‘slave-drivers’ too but these people are still nice to their colleagues.