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Ramy El-Dardiry Ramy El-Dardiry 8 June 2008

Do we really need to have big ego’s?

Posted in Ethics, PhD life, Research and education

My first university course was in elementary calculus. The course itself was foremost a repetition of what we had already learned in secondary school and was therefore in itself not very interesting. However, those first days did learn me a lot about physicists. I was surrounded by nerds, geeks, whizzkids. Badly shaved guys, elegantly dressed with shorts, white sport socks, and sandals. Since most of them used to be the best of their class, they (and I am afraid I should include myself in this category) thought they were to a large extent omniscient. During the calculus course, they considered everything to be self-evident, exclaiming phrases like ”of course, tell me something new”. It was absolutely not accepted to admit not to understand something. Our ego’s created a non-critical atmosphere, in which questions were looked upon with suspicion. Indeed it was very unscientific.

            In research environments this non-critical atmosphere is perhaps not so present. However, our ego’s presents itself in different forms and continue to hinder the development of science as a whole. I experienced many times that questions in colloquia are not asked out of sincere interest of the subject, but to show that the questioner is just a little bit more intelligent than the presenter. I find those kinds of questions absolutely pathetic. In papers, phrases like “it can easily be shown that”, “it is clear” etc. occur all the time. Why? Those phrases do not help the reader and only result in readers feeling stupid. 

I think the physics community would be a much more inspiring community if we stop showing off intellectually continuously. It is time to get out of those childish sandals and start wearing some real shoes. Preferably Italian, “of course”.

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  1. Ronald Snijder

    18 Jun 2008 20:43, Ronald Snijder

    Wearing good shoes is always a great idea 🙂 But the real challenge is changing the culture. Being a – badly dressed – show off seems to be rewarded. Maybe you should look for ways to reward better behaviour.

    What kind of ‘bonus’ could you give to people who are *really* co-operating?

  2. Ramy El-Dardiry

    23 Jun 2008 21:39, Ramy El-Dardiry

    In general, I am not very fond of awarding ‘bonuses’. Because in my experience they never work. It should not be difficult though for a professor to stimulate genuine questions from his student audience. That would be a good start for the future. Unfortunately, I guess most senior scientists are already too stubborn to change some of their bad habits.

  3. Ronald Snijder

    30 Jun 2008 15:55, Ronald Snijder

    Bonuses do not have the be money: recognition – a pat on the shoulder by the professor – is also a reward.