#1: Did no one notice during the peer-review process???
I always thought I made for pretty bad graphs in my theses and publications. During my MSc we can blame it on ignorance and inexperience. During my PhD on failing software, and now that I don’t have any excuses, I do think my graphs look better too. (although: “Graphical quality is low, at least on my printout. Give it a makeover, please.” Reviewer on my latest paper submission)
A few weeks back I read a brand new article by one of the gurus of my specific subfield in science. It started all as usual. This is very important science. We do however not know the precise functioning of process x. Therefore we analysed process x in the lab with fancy new technique and here we present our results.
Looking at the results I first thought I had mistakenly opened version 1-of-377 of my first paper. I recognized the asymmetry of the errorbars, the missing x axis and the hand drawn bars. I looked at the other graphs, and they were even worse. I scrolled back up to check whether science-subfield-guru was indeed first author and/or how many unknown names (insignificant PhD students) were there. But no, only established researchers. Oh well, back to the results.
Gasp. I came to a page full graph in horrific colours in slightly different shades and a completely intelligible legend.
Can anyone find the corresponding colours of the bars in the legend??A quick look at the article’s history surprised me even further. Received early March, accepted early May. Hmpf. Either they resubmitted it after complete refusal in the first round, or the journal just accepted it because of his fame and hoped no one would notice the sloppy graphics, blinded and dazzled by the results from the new fancy technique. Well, not me.
#2 Did she even wear a bra at all?
This is probably a sign that I am growing into a nagging old lady. I think today’s students dress very inappropriate.
I was at a MSc thesis presentation last week and the girl was dressed in jeans, a dress top that left most of her upperbody naked, and a small “shirt” that covered only her arms. For a party or a day at the beach she was looking good, but I don’t think you should have a scientific audience including your elder male supervisors looking at so much of your flesh. Sometimes when she turned her body a bit to point at the screen I was afraid certain bodyparts would fall out of the top.
Although she presented well, she didn’t seem to be able to give answers beyond “Hmm, yeah, that is of course also very important” during the discussion. Yet the male professor seemed very impressed and one of my male colleagues afterwards thought she had done a good job even though he had to acknowledge that there had been some major flaws in the presentation.
So the question is: Did all males think she did a good job and all females think she didn’t do a good job only based on her choice of clothes for the day? How well did she actually do? I started to question human objectivity very much.
I guess this brings me to kiwi-dress in general. I was at the geology department this morning and all the labs had signs on the door: “Wear shoes!”, “Closed toe footwear compulsory!!!”. It is indeed astonishing how often kiwis wear flipflops or no shoes at all. Wearing white socks in your flipflops is also totally cool. I'm not sure if that qualifies as closed toe footwear, but it could.
#3 Couldn't he just leave her alone after the divorce? Or at least bury her in his own backyard?
Last week we submitted the small proposal to invite an EU researcher to NZ. I wrote most of the proposal and came up with the idea, so it was a small victory for me and I hope it will work out. However the next day I heard on the radio that they had found “the dismembered body” of a woman murdered by her ex-husband basically in the soil profile that we proposed to sample. (well, maybe not quite in the profile, but in the same forest). Iew. Every now and then you find yourself sampling a soil and thinking “hmm this would be a good hiding place if you needed to dispose of a body” and I have wondered on occasion about finding a crime scene. I hope it never happens.
