The cost of excellence: top scientists on the brutality of the academic system

29 Nov 2023

Emma Chapman reviews Fascination of Science: 60 Encounters with Pioneering Researchers of Our Time by Herlinde Koelbl (translated by Lois Hoyal)

Role models? For her series of portraits, Herlinde Koelbl asked 60 scientists to draw or write the essence of their research on one of their own hands. Her subjects include biochemist Frances Arnold (left) and quantum physicist Jian-Wei Pan (right). The accompanying interviews explore each person’s scientific research but also the high demands of an academic career. (Courtesy: Herlinde Koelbl)

I always carry a notebook with me, in case I should happen upon an interesting fact or idea for an article. You might argue that a notetaking app on my smartphone would be more efficient for creating a permanent record and you’d be right, when it comes to digital memory. But personally, I find that something about the act of writing on paper allows me to commit a kernel of knowledge to my memory far more robustly, whereas digital notes are often doomed to obscurity. More than that, the act of writing slows me down enough that I have time to think and question.

Nowadays, our ever-present smartphones have ensured that we, as adults, never find ourselves in the situation where we must resort to writing on our skin. But I remember constantly having to scrub ink off the back of my hand while at school, and I often find out more about my daughter’s day from covertly reading the Roblox usernames and party dates tattooing her arms. There is something wonderfully youthful and innocent about writing notes or doodling hearts with initials for anyone to see, on your hands.

In the book Fascination of Science: 60 Encounters with Pioneering Researchers of Our Time, German photographer and author Herlinde Koelbl (translated by Lois Hoyal) takes this idea of playfulness and challenges 60 scientists to draw or write the essence of their research on one of their own hands. Koelbl seeks to condense how researchers think about their work, capturing their portraits close-up and with their palm held up to the camera. Each scientist’s portrait is followed by an interview, which consists of a mix of personal, scientific, and sometimes bizarre questions (“Do you sometimes think about death?”; “Are you already rich?”).

Some of the artwork is self-explanatory. There are cartoons: a marine biologist light-heartedly draws a schooner sailing on deep seas containing smiling fish and an octopus; while a “good” bacterium smiles next to a glowering “bad” one on the hand of a grinning microbiologist. Then there are unadorned words of advice, “Learn from failures”, and life goals such as “Make malaria history”. It is the equations and plots, however, that tended to hold my interest the most – each summing up a lifetime of work, if not a Nobel prize. The “Laughlin wavefunction” appears across the palm of the eponymous physicist Robert Laughlin, while a graph of two overlapping peaks demonstrates the faster way to create novel enzymes as discovered and presented by biochemist Frances Arnold. These are often inaccessible without an explanation of the symbols and, while guessing the research field is a fun game, I found it frustrating that there was no caption or reference in the text to explain what the plot or equation represented.

Strife and sacrifice

Along with exploring how her subjects think, the author aims to present inspirational role models. In the first she succeeds, but in doing so, I fear she has sacrificed the latter goal. Koelbl is able to draw out a comprehensive picture of the path each researcher took to achieve greatness in their field, eliciting fascinating accounts that are nonetheless often difficult to read. This is because these scientists make no secret of the sacrifices they have made along the way, and the brutality of the academic system in general. They describe themselves as necessarily aggressive, victorious only because they strived to be the best and be first.

Psychologist Onur Güntürkün informs us that he “acquired more scars in the struggle for survival in academic life than in being in a wheelchair”, while Arnold is happy to defend her arrogance, saying “If I weren’t, I wouldn’t survive.” Indeed, survival is a recurring theme in the academic lifestyle of “publish or perish”, often requiring one to relinquish any appreciable personal time. Eighty-hour weeks are seemingly the norm, and sleeping for more than five hours a night seems to be a lofty ambition among this set of high achievers.

Koelbl’s questioning comes off as so purposefully intent on drawing out the toxic nature of academic life, that I find it hard to believe her aim is purely to inspire the next generation. Rather, it feels like she has an agenda, and not a bad one, to expose the downright unpleasant business of being the best. She asks the women how they managed to have children and keep their jobs (answer: invent gene-editing techniques while changing diapers) and probes the men as to their family involvement (“I don’t have a close relationship with them. My wife took care of the kids”).

I can only feel sorry for the wife of Nobel-prize-winning physicist Klaus von Klitzing, who admits to neglecting his family, but is trying to make up for it now by taking his wife to conferences with “nice side-activities”. The interview leaves him making plans to see his grandchildren when his diary is next clear – in two years. Indeed, Obsession with Science would be a more fitting title for this book, as the interviewees share an all-encompassing passion for science that they cannot switch off. They have no work–life balance because their work is life, inseparable from their identity.

The book does include a lot of valuable advice about how a scientist should expect to fail the majority of the time and learn to fail with grace as early as possible. Chemist David Avnir learned this valuable lesson at three years old when, tired of food rations, he attempted to grow another chicken by planting a feather in the ground and watering it. Geneticist Paul Nurse talks about almost losing out on a knighthood because the government had the wrong postal address. These moments of vulnerability and humour carry the book and prevent the reader from becoming too breathless with imposter syndrome.Highs and lows Biophysicist Maria Vogel (left) and quantum physicist Robert Langer (right) acknowledge that their obsessiveness and stubbornness have helped their careers, as well as the sacrifices they made. (Courtesy: Herlinde Koelbl)

A willingness to fail goes hand in hand with a second common theme: the need for curiosity. Sadly, academia is not simply a playground for the curious, free of the constraints of societal ills. Koelbl does not shy away from asking both male and female interviewees why women are under-represented in their fields; sometimes asking what they have personally done about it and clearly wrong-footing a few. These comments are all snippets of a far more nuanced discussion, and it is up to the reader to decide who is demonstrating that they are part of the problem and who is simply the messenger highlighting the inertia, or impossibility, of change.

The chemist Peter Seeberger remarks that, of his female graduates, “very few wanted a professorship” due to how academic work-culture makes combining career and family “biologically more difficult” for them. Men, meanwhile, can afford to “catch up with family” later. I would class “not wanting” a professorship purely because it disallows one time off before they are infertile as an enforced reaction to a discriminatory system, as opposed to a choice, free of gender barriers. Nobel-prize-winning materials scientist Dan Shechtman defends his views that women are less competitive by commenting that he “usually” trusts women and, “To give you an example, I have an administrative aide who is trustworthy. I trust her to take good care of all my travels and all my communication.”

As a gender-equalities campaigner, I know how hard it is to change a culture. I am pragmatic about the timescale of real change and celebrate even the tiniest victories. But I still find it saddening to read the words of Nobel-prize winner Laughlin stating that “Women also just have to accept that it’s a male thing they have to conquer…women don’t want to be seen as fighters; it doesn’t come naturally to them.”

Ethical quandary

Fascination of Science spotlights a dilemma I face every time I speak to children, especially girls, intent on pursuing a research career. I have faced discrimination, sexism and harassment on the track to tenure, and slipped into burnout more than once. But I still tell children I have the best job in the world, that I can’t believe someone pays me for it, echoing every one of the 60 scientists interviewed. Am I encouraging people through the door to academia where they will find a twisted version of their dream, an environment that actively selects against them? How does one balance the need for honesty with the need to attract under-represented groups to enter academia and be the change that is needed? Do I tell them that having a family life became possible for me only after I made my peace with not being the best, not being the first, in my career?

As a profile of elite academics, this is a truly fascinating book exposing the savage side of academia with such honesty it could act as an equality, diversity and inclusion activist’s to-do list for what needs to change

Reading this book also reignited my imposter syndrome, and I’m an academic, so I definitely wouldn’t use it as the intended resource to inspire children. As a profile of elite academics, though, this is a truly fascinating book exposing the savage side of academia with such honesty it could act as an equality, diversity and inclusion activist’s to-do list for what needs to change. Was this Koelbl’s clandestine intention? I’m not sure. I imagine many might read this book and revere the single-minded obsession as pure dedication, and who am I to criticize the way someone chooses to live and work? If others aren’t forced to follow the example, I’d say, “as long as it makes them happy”. Except that’s not always the case – for example, electrical engineer and Nobel-prize winner Shuji Nakamura tells us, “Unhappiness is an important engine for me.”

I am not on the Nobel-prize track, and the closest I get to pulling all-nighters is when my kids are sick. I adore science, but I love sleep more. Reading Fascination of Science, I can’t help but respect the devotion on display, but if this is truly what it takes to be the best, I’ll graciously take a place in the minor leagues.2023 MIT Press 392pp £32.38pb

Emma Chapman is a faculty member and Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin fellow based at the University of Nottingham, UK. She is the author of First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time, dr-emma-chapman.com, e-mail emma.chapman@nottingham.ac.uk

FROM PHYSICSWORLD.COM    19/1/2024