OK now the reasons WHY ....

Few days ago it was a bad day for my confidence in science as something, maybe not as pure as crystal, but at least purer than other areas of human activity. That day it finally became obvious to me that scientists are in most cases just like other people and that they are ruled by the same temptations and are able to do anything to promote themselves even if it may set back the advancements in science.

Reason No. 1:

• a young group leader in the very reputable institute had his manuscript reviewed in a very good journal; the article has not been accepted but it might be if one additional experiment would be done to support some observations; so what is the comment of this young group leader?

  We will have it published because, as usually in such cases, the additional experiment requested by reviewers is going to show whatever the reviewers want to see. (it is not literal what he said but in that sense)
  

I ask what the hell? What does it mean experiment will show what reviewers want to see? Is this Science? What if they want to see that the Earth is flat or that it is in the center of the universe? I understand that it is nice to have articles published in good journals but by what price? How many articles have been published this way ... to satisfy the needs of reviewers and not to satisfy the thirst of knowledge and truth ... I will come back to this problem in some other post ...

Reason No. 2:

• I heard an interesting seminar given by a researcher from my institute about new method, which he developed and published during his doctorate studies. This method was something I was looking for and which I could possibly use in my research. In our institute, he was going to use this method in a bit different set up as before, in the same model organism as I am working on. Therefore, I asked him if I could get the original materials from the already published studies and he said that I could but I needed to ask his former boss, who has the rights to the method. OK. No problem for me. I asked his former boss who occurred to be a nice person and gave me a green light to use their method. However, since he was away for few weeks and could not send me anything himself at that moment he suggested that I get the materials from the guy in our institute, who has everything. I was happy because everything seemed to work fine but only for short time. I asked for the materials the guy from the institute and he answered that he will give all I need but:

  I cannot publish before him the use of this method in the model organism we both work on

  If I publish he wants to be an co-author of the article

My jaw dropped on the floor when I read the email from him. I wrote a very bad reply. Fortunately I did not send .... I cooled down during a chat with lab mates. I therefore composed rather nice email saying that I was not going to use any unpublished materials, only these that were already published which I got permission to use from his former boss. I wrote, that if however he would provide something unpublished he definitively would be an co-author. However, I cannot agree to wait with my publication, if results would be worth doing it, until he publishes his paper. He got my answer and the very same day while leaving the institute we had a questionable pleasure to talk about the problem. I explained again what I wanted to use the method for. He said that I can use the method and publish whenever I want as long as it is not about the model organism on which we are both working. I did not agree of course and his only argument was that he came to the lab to be the first to publish it in this organism and he wants to be the first and that he gives me no permission to publish before him .... ble ble ble ... I want to be the firs, that is why I came here, I want to be the first ... you cannot ..... To whom was I talking to? 5 years old child ,who wants a toy or a candy because (s)he wants? There was no point in continuing this meaningless conversation ... I will some day write how everything finished ...

... this post was long enough to stop now.

Anyway these two traumatic :) events made me starting this blog...