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退却者有时候会赢
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退却者有时候会赢
2009.07.10
美军少将Oliver Prince Smith有一句话叫做：We’re not retreating, we are advancing in another direction.（我军不是退却，而是在另外一个方向上推进。）
前几天Sarah Palin在辞去美国Alaska州长时候把这句话说成是Douglas MacArthur的名言，还被pundit们数落了一下。
其实我军《南征北战》的时候，贯彻的就是这个思想。
前天偶然看最新的一期The Scientist，上面有一篇Steve Wiley的文章叫做Quitters Sometimes Win（《退却者有时候会赢》），讲的是他自己在做教授的时候的的一个职责是劝那些做不好研究的学生早点改行去做别的，讲的其实也是这个意思。
The Scientist上Steve Wiley的Quitters Sometimes Win文章链接：http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/55782/
这些道理都非常简单，关键是绝大多数人拿不定的事情是应该在什么时候拼命顶住，应该在什么时候退却，什么时候南征百战，什么时候固若金汤。
按照Steve的说法，他当时作为研究生顾问的责任就是坦率地告诉学生是否应该继续。如果学生坚决不退却，那就的拿出实际的改变出来，否则继续下去，恐怕几乎总会是死路一条。
To be or not to be（有人戏称为：做土鳖还是不做土鳖）主意当然要学生自己拿。可是，这又是第22条军规之类的东西。好的学生自己拿主意当然不错，不好的学生自己拿的主意能有什么好结果？所以，Steve文章中所说的他自己作为研究生顾问的指导和建议的作用，其实还是蛮大的。
但是Steve要是到中国来做同样的工作，恐怕是没有用的，因为我们这里绝大多数研究生压倒一切的目的就是一定要拿个学位到社会上混饭吃。这也是我常常感到无可奈何与束手无策的事情。
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Source: The Scientist Volume 23 | Issue 7 | Page 27
Quitters Sometimes Win
By Steve Wiley
Not everybody who likes independent research is suited for it.
The best students see connections between everything; a prodigious memory does little good if you cannot spot these relationships. Scientists are a persistent group. We all have the experience of doing experiments that refuse to work as planned, or favoring a hypothesis that seems contradicted by the latest data. If we accepted such setbacks, success would be rare, indeed. We frequently see frustration as a challenge and an opportunity to demonstrate the quality of our intuition. The harder we fight the battle, the sweeter the ensuing victory.
Of course we are not always victorious, and our challenges are not restricted to the next experiment. As scientists, we frequently pursue grants, jobs, and career choices using the same approach we use in research: We hypothesize that we are wanted for a certain position and then experimentally test that idea by submitting an application. Just as in the case with our experiments (or my experiments, at least), the results rarely support the original hypothesis.
Here, again, scientists are persistent: I have noted that young scientists rarely alter their original hypothesis ("I am right for this job") unless forced to do so.
I first came to appreciate this when I was head of our departmental graduate program at the University of Utah. One of my most unpleasant jobs was telling certain students that they were not cut out to pursue a career in independent scientific research.
Critically evaluating a student's performance was a real eye-opener for me. When I went through graduate school, I considered myself an intellectual egalitarian. I thought that my fellow students were all equally smart to a first approximation and that success was mostly due to diligence and hard work. What I saw as an advisor, however, suggested something quite different. Some students worked extremely hard, but struggled to keep up with compatriots who barely worked at all.
The biggest difference between the successful and unsuccessful students seemed to be in the area of pattern recognition. The best young scientists saw connections between everything they learned.
Hypotheses came easily and new ideas were abundant. A prodigious memory did little good if you could not see the relationships between facts. Of course, being a successful scientist requires much more than native intelligence. It does require hard work, persistence, good communication skills, and luck. But without fundamental talent, success is rare.
When I informed students that they inherently "did not have what it took" to become independent scientists, most took it very hard. I tried to explain to them that it was very difficult to become successful in their field with all of the right tools (great intellect, memory, lab skills, organization, and so on). In their situation, success was nearly impossible. The hard truth was that continuing was a waste of time. Their time. Better to get a job in an area where they could excel rather than struggle.
Experience has reinforced my conviction that dropping weak students was the right thing to do. In many cases, I met these students years later and they thanked me for doing them a big favor. Some found jobs in the biotech industry and one became an MD. One said that he was actually relieved afterwards. It forced him to be realistic and to pursue a career in computer programming that he loved. Conversely, the marginal students I knew who continued in their research career all struggled. Most became successful, but not as independent scientists.
Why are many young scientists so reluctant to consider alternate careers? My experience suggests that it is, in part, due to the obsessive-compulsive nature of most young scientists, who get a fixed idea in their heads that they want to spend their lives understanding the nuances of biological systems. But it is sometimes due to self-interested faculty mentors who think of students as more a source of cheap labor rather than budding young scientists. In fact, our graduate committee excluded a student's adviser from evaluations of their prelims because advisers would reflexively want to keep students regardless of actual performance.
There is no disgrace in failing to achieve a career as a scientist. Truly. Some of my students achieved distinction in their graduate work only to walk away from a scientific career with no regrets and with much ensuing success. Life is full of opportunities. The more attuned we are to how we realistically match those opportunities, the more likely we are to find real satisfaction in our careers.
(Steven Wiley is a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Fellow and director of PNNL's Biomolecular Systems Initiative.)
导师与学生
https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-176-242952.html
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