that they were trying to buy him, or buy us, for their research institution in Shreveport, Louisiana. The boss handed them over to me, laughing dismissively. "If you can convince him," he told his visitors, "then maybe we have something to talk about." In the dream, there was no follow-up. But I considered uprooting my life to another country for money, for my research, wondering if I could find all the dog's vaccination certificates. Then I realized that the work they were buying me to do wasn't the kind of work I loved, and it wasn't really me they wanted to buy.
In the real world of science, this actually does happen. At least one close colleague moved his whole institute from one university to another, to a different city, staff, students and all. More often, it is a single bright young star they are after, someone who has published something big in Science or Nature or Cell during their doctoral work or as a post doc, someone with the potential to bring in lots of grants (lots of overhead) and students (lots of tuition). Cross border head hunting of this kind is less common but for smaller countries like Canada is a part of our brain drain. Few of our research institutions have the big bucks to put together this kind of seduction for our own superstars, let alone those from abroad.
I have often mused on what life would be like if scientists had more celebrity, and the general public obsessed about us to the same extent that they do about athletes or pop stars. Imagine being traded from one institution to another. You would be called into the director's office unexpectedly and told, "We've traded you for Dr. Berlin's latest PhD student, plus future considerations. Go pack your bags." There would then be a press conference and you would say,"I'll miss my fellow scientists here, but I'm looking forward to joining the new department and helping them win big grants. It's the work that matters, not my personal statistics." Then you would hold back the tears, and the flashbulbs would flash.
Even the most banal pop star gets called back for an encore, but this never happens at a scientific conference. We get the question period, which is like giving hecklers their own time slot after a comedy routine. This tradition usually prevents presentations from being interrupted by data hecklers, but not always. I was once heckled at a conference in Hawaii when the projector bulb went out and I decided to keep going, waving my hands around to illustrate what was supposed to be on the screen. "Show us your golf swing!" a distinguished colleague hollered from the back. Sometimes I actually have a few slides after my apparent final slide, in case anyone asks for just a little bit more, kind of a mini-encore.
Like being mobbed by bio-groupies, trades and encores are fun to think about, but I'm not sure they would improve the quality of scientific life. There is no red carpet to walk on our way into the conference hall, paparazzi flocking, no reporters looking for that sound bite. Or at least, not at the conferences I go to. If we were celebrities, most of us would be photographed in that tragic pose that fiction writers seem to favour... we have seen the depths of the universe and it's not looking good. We have to be serious after all, not be clowns in beanies or beefcakes with biceps. Considering how the scientists' image with the public could improve, there are few convincing role models. The media, our media, stereotypes everyone, from politicians to children with leukaemia. It is far easier to use shortcuts to evoke emotions than to tell an honest story and hope people will care. It's far easier to employ innuendo than it is to prove facts. Or so I would have you believe.
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