I believe that all people are in possession of what might be called a universal musical mind. Any true music speaks with this universal mind to the universal mind in all people. – Bill Evans
In Germany there are approximately 27,000 PhDs awarded per year (The German doctorate, A guide for doctoral candidates). In the US in 2020 they were 55,283 (2020 Doctorate Recipients from US universities). It is a well-known fact that most of these doctorate recipients won’t get a permanent position in academia and will instead become skilled scientists in companies or administrations. These jobs offer interesting career perspectives and are much better paid than their academic counterparts. Testimonials of successful transfuges are flooding social networks: At least, I can be happy now (anonymous reviewer number one)! I can finally enjoy working in a collaborative environment (anonymous reviewer number two). The science there is actually great (self-contribution).
With all this encouraging data in hand, where does the lingering frustration of not being able to grasp an academic permanent research position come from? Multi-factorial, will the prudent scientist say. Others will add that academics are conditioned to believe that nothing outside their microcosm is worth of their brilliant minds. Afraid to become bored, maybe? Scared of having to compromise with one’s integrity? But willing to play instead this sophisticated political game with competitors and journal editors, to leave in the fear of being scooped, to manipulate colleagues to get access to more capital and more data, to vomit all ambivalent feelings about the system on Twitter and then to go back to the lab and play according to the same twisted rules [1].
Indeed, why is there so much frustration when the game of life constrains researchers out of academia? It is certainly not because of a loss in social position. Few scientists will become famous, and lead field-changing studies. Most will end up having modest careers, training successfully a handful of young people, sending some of them to therapy, and adding minuscule contributions to the work of colleagues. And then we die, and no one remembers doiXXXX89232 in Journal of Discoveries E (or even in better journals!).
There is of course more to that, a subtext to the absurdity of academic conventions. It is this subtext, grounded in a deeper reality, that is infinitely more precious than the academic system. It is the ability to enjoy things that cannot be fully understood, and then go on starving while trying to understand them. It does not matter if it is an improvisation on an Ellington tune or a weird mutant phenotype in a clutch of zebrafish eggs. Science, like Music, speaks to a universal mind that both trained and novice nerds possess, a combination of aesthetic sense and curiosity. Intelligence grasps a loose thread, a logical link that was unseen prior, a reminiscence of the theme appearing in a different key. All of a sudden, it is as if a hidden world was whispering to the attentive ear a secret truth, leaving it alone to understand until it decides to share the sentiment.
Hundreds of musicians in New York cannot earn a living as performers. They hold the doors at the Village Vanguard to stay tuned with the best music in the world, and they give guitar lessons to put food on the table. They can still play jazz. But to the scientist who is eventually stripped from the lab environment, what is left to feed the curiosity crave out of job hours? Not much that I can think of. Data analysis from public databases for the ones who love keyboards. A binocular and a bag full of insects or plants for the spiritual heirs of the 19th century priests and aristocrats who went into natural sciences. The rest of us must stop. Serious science cannot be a hobby. It takes too much time, too many resources, and too many people.
Some try to anticipate the drama along the tortuous path that goes from the doctorate to the hypothetical permanent research position. What if the tragedy of being cut from its own addiction to the unknown could be avoided by smart planification? This becomes possible, along the years, as some of the basic scientific tasks are moved to the background and don’t require as much concentration as they used to be. It was once incredibly painful to form an image under a microscope: drowning far from the surface in a tiny alien word, deprived of the usual spatial landmarks. Focusing the bloody microscope was half of the scientific project effort, to the novice slouching over the bench. Now it is different. The mind is free in front of two choices: it can interpret, or it can improvise.
It can interpret sheet music, the final form that the academic trajectory is supposed to take. Thinking of publications ahead of experiments is good project management. One can tailor the work to the right audience and avoids unnecessary experiments and digressions. However, this “strategy effort” also empties scientific work from a deeper substance. Why trying to produce pale copies of the final forms produced by colleagues or more advanced scientists if it does not convey significance, at least logical truth? And isn’t it a philosophical fallacy to believe we can master a set of rules that will guarantee access to scientific stability?
Jazz music is not a style, it is a process, the process of composing in real time. – Bill Evans
The other alternative is to improvise, to embrace fully the daily process of making science and retaining pleasure and creativity. Yes, there is a possibility that all these efforts are in vain, that the final form walks only on one leg, that the initial hypothesis was wrong. And yet there is so much freedom in letting oneself go in full conscience of the present, to never dismiss the joy of trying something new, of starting a crazy experiment, of reforming its logic by reading meaningful scientific literature, and of having random conversations with minds that are shaped differently. Even though the academic system has adopted many of the productivity norms that rule private industries, it is still a world in which it is possible to carve out the freedom of playing with rhythm and harmonies, moving along the day, making mistakes that will later on be solved by sequential improvisation.
- [1] I am not pretending to be more enlightened while writing courageously in a corner of the internet where no one is passing by to read me. Nothing is more dangerous than “tous pourris” and I am, too, willing to be integrated into the system. Please hire me.
- 45 min worth spending with Bill Evans.