Dan Goodman on Nostr: There's a movement in neuroscience suggesting we should be pursuing bigger bets with ...
There's a movement in neuroscience suggesting we should be pursuing bigger bets with larger teams. I think there's a case for doing a bit of this, but I think it's a bad idea to prioritise it for two reasons, and a good case for saying we should be moving in the exact opposite direction.
Bigger bets generally means less money available for the smaller bets. This means fewer ideas being pursued. Similarly, larger teams means fewer people in leadership roles with ownership over their research direction. Again, fewer ideas and less diversity.
This is bad for neuro because most ideas have turned out to be wrong in the sense that they haven't moved us closer to a global understanding of how our brain's work. (By this I don't mean that they were bad ideas, or that they weren't worth pursuing!) This is maybe controversial so let me explain.
When I read papers from 50 or 100 years ago speculating about how the brain might work, I don't see a huge difference with how we talk about it now. Few (none?) of the big debates have been settled: innate versus learned, spikes versus rates, behaviourism versus cognitivism, ...
The second reason big bets/teams shouldn't be our focus is that it limits opportunities for the autonomy and development of less senior researchers. Let's be honest, if we start pursuing 'big bets' those bets will be the bets of the most senior scientists, not the junior ones.
Junior scientists will - to an even greater extent than currently - be relegated to implementing the ideas of senior scientists. That's bad for diversity of ideas, but it's also bad for developing a new generation of thinkers who might be able to break us out of our (proven unsuccessful) patterns.
That's why I think we should go in the opposite direction. Empower junior scientists. Don't make junior PIs beg for grant funding in competitions decided by the opinions of senior scientists. Don't make them postdocs subordinate to their supervisors.
Instead, fund junior scientists directly and independently. Let senior scientists compete with each other to work with these talented younger scientists. Give senior scientists a non-binding advisory role to help develop the talents of the junior scientists.
If we think larger teams might be important, let's find ways to empower groups of secure and independent scientists to work together positively and voluntarily - because it makes their work more impactful - rather than negatively and through necessity - because they need to get a job.
#neuroscience
Bigger bets generally means less money available for the smaller bets. This means fewer ideas being pursued. Similarly, larger teams means fewer people in leadership roles with ownership over their research direction. Again, fewer ideas and less diversity.
This is bad for neuro because most ideas have turned out to be wrong in the sense that they haven't moved us closer to a global understanding of how our brain's work. (By this I don't mean that they were bad ideas, or that they weren't worth pursuing!) This is maybe controversial so let me explain.
When I read papers from 50 or 100 years ago speculating about how the brain might work, I don't see a huge difference with how we talk about it now. Few (none?) of the big debates have been settled: innate versus learned, spikes versus rates, behaviourism versus cognitivism, ...
The second reason big bets/teams shouldn't be our focus is that it limits opportunities for the autonomy and development of less senior researchers. Let's be honest, if we start pursuing 'big bets' those bets will be the bets of the most senior scientists, not the junior ones.
Junior scientists will - to an even greater extent than currently - be relegated to implementing the ideas of senior scientists. That's bad for diversity of ideas, but it's also bad for developing a new generation of thinkers who might be able to break us out of our (proven unsuccessful) patterns.
That's why I think we should go in the opposite direction. Empower junior scientists. Don't make junior PIs beg for grant funding in competitions decided by the opinions of senior scientists. Don't make them postdocs subordinate to their supervisors.
Instead, fund junior scientists directly and independently. Let senior scientists compete with each other to work with these talented younger scientists. Give senior scientists a non-binding advisory role to help develop the talents of the junior scientists.
If we think larger teams might be important, let's find ways to empower groups of secure and independent scientists to work together positively and voluntarily - because it makes their work more impactful - rather than negatively and through necessity - because they need to get a job.
#neuroscience