Thursday's panel discussion Being a Scientist started 20 minutes late, but probably not because the panelists were trying to find last-minute answers. The Nobel laureates Francoise Barré-Sinoussi, Harold Kroto, John Mather and Oliver Smithies participated in the panel, which was moderated by Adam Smith. The format was a question & answer session with most questions coming from the audience. The video of the session can be found here.

Working Hard

Adam Smith started the discussion by asking Oliver Smithies whether being a scientist means working hard. He answered that a scientists doesn't have to work hard, but is playing hard, i.e. is enjoying science so much that it doesn't feel like hard work. Francoise Barré-Sinoussi also never thought that she was working hard herself. Harold Kroto said that you should always work on something that you can put your best effort into, otherwise you should move to something else you enjoy.

Communicating Science

The next question was about the importance of communicating science. John Mather said that being able to explain things to others is very important to obtain funding and find collaborators. And that practice helps. Oliver Smithies said that Powerpoint is forbidden in his laboratory, as it leads down a dangerous path of complexity. Harold Kroto that good presentations skills are important. His aim is to give presentations where not more than 10% in the audience (and also not the presenter) fall asleep. 

Science and Family

The panelists were then asked how compatible family life is with being a scientist. Oliver Smithies said that you can't be a scientist without relationships with other people, and that of course includes family. He said that in his research field (lab work in the life sciences) you have to work at least some hours on the weekends (e.g. setting up bacterial cultures), because otherwise the 5 day week would turn into a 3 day week. Francoise Barré-Sinoussi admitted that she worked in the lab the day she got married. And she considers her lab also part of her family.

The Scientific Community

The next question was about scientific discoveries that go against the common thinking in the scientitifc community. John Mather said that you shouldn't expect good treatment just because you are right about something, and that you need to be patient. He himself abandoned cosmic background radiation (that later won him the Nobel Prize) after his PhD, and switched to a different topic for his post-doc. Harold Kroto said that people need to understand that gathering evidence is hard and sometimes goes against common sense. He gave the example of the difficulties Kopernikus had explaining that the earth moves around the sun. 

Does your research get better after you win the Nobel Prize? Oliver Smithies: No.

The question about how to find scientific collaborators was first answered by Francoise Barré-Sinoussi. She said that

Scientists are humans, humans are primates, and primates like to have their territories. So do scientists. It is important to recognise each other's territories.

Oliver Smithies asks himself not what is in for him, but rather what is in it for the collaborator. Harold Kroto said that you shouldn't listen to Nobel Prize winners (or supervisors) when deciding whether to stop a difficult research project.

Final Thoughts 

I thought that the panel discussion was one of the best plenary sessions. Some of the questions were obviously rather generic and not really specific to science, but it was a discussion full of interesting (and funny) stories. It would probably help if questions were solicited from young researches in advance, and if the panel would focus more on one or a few specific aspects of being a scientist. One panel I would like for 2011 is Becoming a Scientist, where laureates would answer questions about the lessons they learned as PhD students.