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Today was such a lovely day, so many good things about it. Sunshine and good coffee. A pleasant walk. Good conversation over lunch, ranging from interesting observations to the latest trends in the theater. I was looking forward to a wonderful evening. And then
IT happened.
I picked up my mail, as one does. Important Science Weekly, lets have a look. And (did you guess?) there, in living color (with all the added costs of color) was our lovely project, in all its glory: insightful, interesting, perceptive, important. Perfect in every way but one. Right, it wasn't ours.
All that work, all that effort, all that elation that the experiments were actually working! But sadly, they worked for someone else as well. We'll be fortunate if we can "publish" our work in a chain e-mail that we distribute among our friends ("If you forward the attached manuscript to 10 colleagues, good fortune will rain down upon you, but if you break the chain, your nose will fall off.")
Woe. Woe is me. As the immortal Ringo once said, "I feel like an old, worn-out drumstick."
Once, when I was a very young Molet, and very idealistic, I believed that science was about discovery and validation. I'd read about the excitement of the scientists who, in the eclipse of 1919, worked to test Einstein's special theory, and how amazed and pleased they were that the predictions held. They didn't shrug and say, "Oh, well, too bad that Einstein-guy already published it." I thought we should be truly proud and happy if we found the same thing that others also found, and that it turned out we were all right. It wouldn't really matter who published it first, just that we'd all gotten it right. Right?
Don't make me laugh. We know what happens. Doom and gloom. Years of work out the window. No parties. No invitations to speak at glorious venues. No being wined and dined. Back to the drawing board. Woe, indeed. But for those of you who are guiltily relishing a bit of Schadenfreude, be warned if you persist in this trade of ours, this business of converting money into scientific publications, this is going to happen to you someday. Or so you should hope. Because if it doesn't, you're just not doing interesting enough work. So let me wallow in my misery and you can show me a bit of sympathy, okay?
Come on, you know the Mole better than that. We'll fix it. "Rapture," you say, "this must be the Mole's Guide to What to Do When You are Scooped." And so it is.
Okay, we've been scooped. It happens. And to figure out what to do, we need to figure out why this is really such a bad thing. There are really three problems facing us now. First, how does this happen? Second, why is the work less highly valued if it isn't first? And third, what can we do about it? So lets roll up our (real or imaginary) sleeves and get to work it will help keep our minds off the pain.
So, the first problem how does it come about that we toil away on some really interesting and novel bit of science, only to find that others have had the same insights, obtained the same results, and beaten us to the, as it were, punch? This one is fairly easy: most, if not all, science of the biomedical research type (and if you're reading this, here, in this journal, either you work on biomedical research, or you have picked this up in your dentist's office if the latter, the brochures on oral reconstruction are likely to ultimately prove more interesting) generally proceeds to important new discoveries on the heels of technical and intellectual advancements. No, I do not buy into the `shoulders of giants' thing (except when I'm sucking up), but that's something we'll save for another time. But simply put, we tend to make important new advances when the tools (intellectual and technical) become available, and others are not unlikely to do the same. And since everyone has been keeping their findings so very top secret, in mortal dread of just this sort of thing, nobody knew that they were all (except one) about to be scooped.
Of course, this is one way that one can sometimes avoid being scooped by making it known that you are, in fact, working on this interesting and important thing you're doing. Some scientists (not all, but some) who find that they too are working on the same thing may actually let you know when they are getting ready to submit (or at least publish) their work, giving you a chance to sneak your stuff into press. And editors of scientific journals may well ask you to review work in that area, in the chance that you might similarly be prepared to wax poetic on the same topic. Yes, this runs the risk that you will have spurred your competition to move faster (and in secret) in response to your public announcement, but at least people will tend to know that you tried to be open. Just a suggestion.
Okay, so this brings us to the really vexing question (before we figure out what we can do, now that the dread thing has happened, and oh woe is we): why is this so awfully bad? After all, you've generated what is clearly years of work and reached the same conclusions as did the scooper. And as the scoopee, at the very least this rapid confirmation will solidify the field and bring things forward with greater pace. Or, even more likely (because you took the time to be really careful and did much more elegantly controlled experiments) your work will convince many of those who didn't believe the somewhat more quickly slapped together (but first) publication. Yours, not theirs, should be the one that everyone will cite, being the better work. Right?
But no. It doesn't work that way. "Well," you might say, "I would greatly prefer to publish my work in the lowliest journal, and know that it was the better work, than waste energy and effort even trying to have the high impact thingie with the attendant accolades." Such a position might give you real satisfaction, but of course, you'd still be a loser. But even if you say such things (and I know you don't) you don't really mean them, so we know you aren't a loser. (Just to clarify, getting scooped doesn't ever make one a loser, but never allowing oneself to take a chance of being scooped just might.) So, why doesn't it work this way why is the first publication (or the first few, if they come out very close together) the one that gets the notice? I think there are a couple of reasons and they are inter-related. One is that most people are too busy, or too lazy, or too bored, to pay attention to all of the work that is published in their fields (let alone other fields), and therefore, if a paper doesn't have something fundamentally new to say, it just isn't worth the effort to pay much attention to it. And the second, which I fear is a bit worse, is that a majority of scientists like the high impact system, where the first one in gets parades and honors and invitations to parties at fabulous meetings; because they hope and expect that at some point it will be them. (Or `they' if we're being grammatical, or `me' if we're being honest). If we get rid of the system now, before I've gotten mine, it just wouldn't be fair.
We promote a system where we designate victory for the first to publish, and denigrate (or at least tend to pay less attention to) those who come in second. Do we doubt this? Now, in the hemi-centennial celebration of those who won the race to the structure of the double helix and thus (to the eyes of the reading public, at least, including far too many scientists) `discovered' DNA? It's a simple (but ultimately untestable) fact that had W and C (and that I don't have to say their names helps my point) chosen to focus on new species of lungwort instead, the structure of life itself would certainly have come to light within the year at most. But this does not dampen one bit the breathless rapture with which the recounting of their discovery is retold. And since we do not criticize this tendency (or, indeed, the extremely popular tradition of giving dynamite dividends to this year's most accomplished scientists), this must mean that we not only endorse it, but also like it. I bet deep down, we like it because we hope in our heart of hearts, that it might come to us. If not at that ultimate level, then at least at the much smaller level of the occasional terrific paper saying that this time, the first ones to discover this really cool thing was us.
How very sweet. And I'd love to savor that feeling. But I can't. Because I've been scooped. So what are we going to do about it? I'll tell you next time. Unless, of course, someone else does, first.
(to be continued)
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