Successful scientists are driven by curiosity and by ego. Lay people find it disappointing when told that egos of individual scientists play a  crucial role in the progress of science. But the same people complain that their country has produced too few Nobel prize winners.

First discovery claims and disputes have always been part of science, from Newton to Montaigner (Nobel prize medicine 2008). Big ego’s and accompanying priority claims will always be part of science.

Example 1
Today I read an amusing story by Herman de Lang in the Dutch magazine Tijdschrift voor Natuurkunde (September 2009) about Millikan, the physicist who was the first to determine the charge of the electron. Robert Millikan had such a big ego that people at Caltech, where Millikan was president,  had defined the unit of vanity as the “Kan”. But to classify people on the vanity scale it was easier to use the milliKan.

Example 2
In the last month (August) issue of Physics Today (the leading physics magazine worldwide) there is a letter by D.M. Eagles complaining about an article – published in Physics Today, October 2008 – written by Carlos Sá de Melo. Although the letter of Eagles and the reply is somewhat technical for the non-physicist the gist is plain for everybody: one British scientist (Eagles) is complaining that another British scientist – already for a long time at Urbana in the USA – and Nobel-prize winner (Leggett)  is getting credit for a discovery Eagles claimed is his. The reply by  Carlos Sá de Melo is impressive.

Baby
If you discover something new you have to publish this finding to be recognized as its originator. But this act of proliferation will not suffice. You will have to defend your baby continuously. Colleagues, knowingly or unknowingly, will disregard your revelation in their papers and in their presentations.

Conference
After a conference talk you can stand up and fire your “I did it all before you did it” comment at the presenter. For a number of reasons this hostile approach is not effective. In the first place because you are spoiling the congenial atmosphere of the conference. Very likely the presenter knew you would be in the audience and he is prepared for your attack. Furthermore if the presenter is a native English speaker and you are not, you do not stand a chance. The audience will consider you to be a querulous loser. If you insist on defending your view on history the best way is to be positive: “I appreciate your talk very much. Extremely interesting. My question is stimulated by your new approach. I hope you can help me out. When I worked on something related I found that … . What do you think I missed?”

Even if you would win the argument at that particular conference you have no guarantee that at a next conference your claim will be honored. On the contrary. If you really want to set the record straight, you have to do it in writing.

Published comments
Scientific journals have detailed and precise descriptions about the format of a comment that they would consider publishing. Such a comment is treated as a real article, with anonymous reviewers. If the reviewers accept your comment, possibly after having requested alterations, the authors of the original article are give a chance to react, and this reaction is also subject to peer review. If your comment consists only of your priority claim you do not have much of a chance to get it accepted. It helps a lot if you find a flaw in the reasoning of your competitors and point out in your comment that you – in the original and earlier paper – did not make that mistake.

Your colleagues do not appreciate your hostile behavior at a conference, but they love it in writing. Written comments and the reactions by the original authors are often amusing. They are well-written, in polite language, but you can feel the passion and anger behind it.

Many comments
Young people are inclined to write many comments. They feel insulted and neglected by their famous senior colleagues. Even if they are right it is not wise to write many comments. I think you should only write a comment if a very important priority issue is at stake, or when a paper contains very serious errors that, if not corrected, would harm your own career. One comment in five years seems reasonable to me. Just continue your own work, write your own papers  and – if necessary – deal there with your priority claims and literature corrections

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