Being Smart is Not Always Enough
The firestorm that was ignited by the seemingly racist remarks made by Nobel Laureate James Watson several weeks ago started me thinking about scientists and the way that they are trained. In general, scientists emphasize and place an inordinately high premium on “being smart”. If graduate students or postdoctoral fellows are deemed to be “really smart”, their mentors tend to overlook inappropriate or, in some instances, antisocial behavior. Further, and perhaps more egregiously, they do little to help these students and postdocs overcome or correct their in appropriate or bad behavior. Consequently, these individuals continue to behave inappropriately and believe that, because they are smart, they can do or say whatever they want without fear of punishment or retribution.
I can recall a conversation that I had as a postdoctoral fellow during a visit with an award-winning faculty member from my old department about a faculty member (let’s call him Dr. X) who worked in the department where I was doing my postdoctoral work. During our conversation, I mentioned that Dr. X treated his people badly and frequently humiliated them at departmental meetings and social gatherings. I will never forget what she said in response to my remarks–“Yes, everyone knows that Dr. X has problems and he treats his graduate students and postdoctoral fellows badly, but he is brillant and so successful that people are willing to overlook his shortcomings”. As I look back, this conversation had a greater impact on my career than I care to acknowledge.
During my 7 years as a tenure-track Assistant Professor, I totally bought into the notion that being smart is all that matters. I expected people to give me the benefit of any doubt even though I may have acted inappropriately or behaved badly in certain situations. Unfortunately, after I left academia ( fro the record-I was smart enough), and began working in the "real world", I discovered the hard way that being smart is simply not enough to keep a job or advance a career.
As I see it, Watson is just another casualty in a long list of world-renown scientists who finally pushed the limits of civility and tolerance to a breaking point and justly received what he deserved-- an appropriate punishment that, many feel, was long overdue. I think that the Watson spectacle ought to be a wake up call for the folks who are currently training the next generation of scientists—being smart is certainly important but it is simply not enough to insure a long, successful and untainted scientific career.
Until next time....
Good Luck and Good (Smart?) Job Hunting !!!!!!!!!!
