I feel good, I feel stupid

This was something I sent around to our School's postgraduate students, after being sent the article by Prof. Martin Fey:

Schwartz, M.A. (2008) The importance of stupidity in scientific research. Journal of Cell Science121:1771 .

This should be essential reading for postgraduate students in any discipline. (It's irrelevant that it's in a biology journal.) Essentially Schwartz's argument is that since research is on the very edge of human knowledge, feeling lost or stupid should be felt regularly by researchers. This normalisation of the self-doubt that many of us feel (and not just while doing our graduate research!) is surprisingly encouraging.

"...we don’t do a good enough job of teaching our students
how to be productively stupid – that is, if we don’t feel stupid it
means  we’re  not  really  trying."

It's great to see articles in scientific journals that acknowledge the humanity of researchers.

Image from www.cartoonstock.com

Published 29 May 09 05:59 by Andrew.Rate
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# sky said on May 29, 2009 10:36 AM:

Thanks for that link. I went over and read the article, and agree that it's good reading for students in any discipline. In fact, I wish I could show it to some of my undergraduate students who are used to being top of the class and seem a bit shocked and disheartened by how things work at university level.

# Esmeralda Rocha said on June 15, 2009 12:37 PM:

Loved that article - as an arts doc student, I feel overwhelmed by the things I don't understand and the theories I'm trying to come up with.  I think it's made worse by the fact that because there are no answers in my field - you'd think that'd make you feel better - you can't possibly be wrong - but instead it can swamp you. This was such a comfort to me, cheers!

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About Andrew.Rate

I have worked at UWA since 1995, coming from New Zealand to take an appointment as Lecturer in the Soil Science group in the former Faculty of Agriculture. I completed my PhD, from Lincoln University in New Zealand, in 1991. If you really want to find out about work stuff go here. In real life I love my wife, daughter and guitar. Occasionally, I wish I had chosen a career as a carpenter, counsellor or poet.

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