When you think of a scientific discovery like the discovery
of penicillin or of radiation, who do you think of making it?
I want you to picture it in your mind for a moment.
What do you see?
Do you see a single person making that discovery?
Or do you see a team of people?
Grab a mug of tea and settle in because today we're
going to be talking about scientific collaborations.
That's still very hot tea.
When we think of science, I think a lot of us
really think of scientific rock stars--
these world-changing people who've
made huge discoveries and singularly
pushed science forwards.
But today that's rarely true.
Sure, there are stories like Alexander Fleming discovering
penicillin in a singular, accidental finding.
But we forget that that journey from moldy plate in the lab
to usable antibiotic was not made by just one person.
In fact, the Nobel Prize for penicillin
was not awarded to Fleming alone,
but rather to Fleming, Howard Florey, and Ernst Chain,
who made the methods that allowed
us to make large quantities of penicillin,
allowing it to become a usable and useful antibiotic.
Now, I'm not here to say that there
are no great scientists who do amazing work alone
or to say that everybody in science
is an awesome collaborator and all scientists are
best friends.
But I do think that there is a disconnect between the idea we
often see portrayed in the media of science
being a singular endeavor and to the reality
that a lot of science done today is
done as a collaborative effort.
Still hot.
A 2003 study on scientific collaboration
pointed out some really great reasons
why science is becoming more collaborative,
including the fact that science tackles
really complex problems.
And as knowledge and technology move forwards,
individual scientists are becoming
more and more specialized in their areas of expertise.
So to tackle these large multi-pronged problems,
we often need many scientists with many different skills
and many different pieces of equipment
from many different centers and groups to all come together
to tackle these complex issues.
I think one of the areas where we actually
do see collaboration in science represented in popular culture
and the media is things like physics and astronomy
where very large consortia and groups from around the world
come together to do really amazing work.
In fact, aerospace research and space science
are some of the first times that I
can remember seeing collaborative science
represented.
So thinking about things like watching space shuttle launches
and watching mission control as the Curiosity Rover landed
on Mars, you're really getting a representation
that it wasn't just one person who sent a rocket up
into space, but rather really large groups of people
all coming together and celebrating when their research
flies off into space.
Seeing that is really, really cool.
And it makes it really clear that that science
is a collaboration between a big team.
This is something that I think about a lot
because I want to make videos and films that really represent
the reality of science.
So I do try and think about how we
can represent that collaboration that
does happen in places like biology that might not be quite
as flashy, but might be a field biologist collecting data
perhaps as part of a team and then bringing it back
to the lab where there are lots of people working together
to analyze this data, and go through it, and--
I don't know.
We need to find the rocket moment for biology, I think.
And personally, I haven't quite figured it out yet.
But I'm working on it.
I'm drinking some tea.
And I'm thinking about it.
Now, some people who've spent more time than I really
delving into this idea of the lone genius in science
have come to the conclusion that this type of representation
of science and scientists can be a problem.
This often comes up around the time
that the Nobel Prize is awarded every year
because the prize can only go to three individuals.
But often in science, many more people than that
have worked on a discovery.
A Guardian article from 2017 even noted that one of that
year's winners in physics, Doctor Rainer Weiss,
pointed out that the discovery of gravitational waves--
for which that year's Nobel Prize in physics was awarded--
was actually the work of closer to about 1,000 people
across more than 40 years.
Now, collaboration in science isn't always perfect.
In fact, that 2003 study that I pointed out
was in fact an in-depth case study
of a lack of collaboration in a newly formed research group.
The collaboration of that group was really sparse.
And it was noticeably much less than in surrounding research
groups that had been formed at the same time.
I like that one of the points that it makes
is that science is still a human endeavor.
You need things like trust, and compatible personalities,
and work styles to make successful collaborations
happen.
And those types of things can take time
to develop in newly formed groups.
One of the things that I found most interesting
was that some of the study participants
found collaboration to be a rite of passage in science.
To be seen as a collaborator or to have
collaborative opportunities arise,
you had to be seen as knowledgeable
in your field and a good scientist worth
collaborating with.
They saw that fourth- and fifth-year graduate students
reported more connections to other projects
than first- and second-year graduate
students, which makes sense.
As you develop your knowledge and skills
as you become a scientist, you have more skills and resources
that people want to share and collaborate with.
But for me, these aren't just abstract examples.
This is also the reality that I experienced in lab.
I didn't do anything in isolation.
And no one that I saw really did either.
My PhD project was supported by so many people.
There were collaborators in other labs
who used their specialties and expertise
to help me do experiments and collect data.
There were older graduate students and postdocs who
helped me analyze that data.
There were technicians and lab managers
who helped me to run experiments,
helped to teach me new skills, and helped
to keep the lab running.
There were other lab members who helped with experiments,
and reagents, and ideas.
There was my PI, who provided guidance,
and kept the lab running, and helped to really drive
my research forward.
And because of this collaborative nature,
I would say that for the majority of talks, and papers,
and presentations in my field, scientists typically speak
in the first person plural.
They say things like "we" did this experiment.
And "we" found this.
And "we" analyzed this.
Because, really, it feels almost rude to say "I" did this
and to sort of not acknowledge all
of that other collaborative work that goes into these projects.
It was actually really hard in things like my thesis defense
or in talks where I had to really reflect
on my own progress to say "I," because it does feel rude
as if you're denying that there was all
of this additional help that really helped to support
the work that you were doing.
One research chapter of my PhD is already published.
And the second is in the submission process now.
The first has six authors.
And the second has 12.
And each of those person provided invaluable work
to make that project happen even though we sort of refer
to that overarching project as mine.
But I could not have done it without all of those people.
And I'm not alone in this.
I'm also second author on a paper that just came out
that has 20 authors.
At least in the life sciences, it's
common to have big groups of people like this
all working to push a project forward.
A study from 2015 looked at authorship
on scientific papers between 1900 and 2011
and saw that in the natural and medical sciences,
single author papers decreased from 87% of the papers in 1900
to only 7% of the papers in 2011.
They also found that interinstitutional and
international collaboration also rose in that time period
and that more collaborative papers were more likely to be
cited or referenced more often.
They couldn't specifically define
a cause for this relationship.
But they did point out again that pooling resources
from multiple institutions, and scientists, and countries may
provide the increased resources needed to solve
increasingly complex problems.
The Scientific American article that led me to that study
actually made a good point about the fact that if students think
that science is a really singular career--
that you have to do everything yourself--
it can be kind of isolating and intimidating.
When I think of scientists on TV,
I think of that one forensic scientist who's in the lab
all the time and seems to be able to run
every different possible experiment.
And they know everything about everything.
And everything rests on that one person.
And that's really intimidating to think
that if I am going to be a scientist,
I need to be the expert.
And I'm going to work alone.
And I'm not going to have any support.
That's kind of scary.
Sure, there are a lot of times where
you do work alone in the lab.
I remember lots of late nights alone
in the lab doing research.
But I think that the most fun times that I had in science
were when I was doing science with other people.
And maybe that was sitting next to someone
in the tissue culture hood preparing cells together
for an experiment.
Or maybe that was bouncing ideas around at a lab meeting.
Honestly, the most fun that I had in science
was together, not alone.
But this idea of the lone genius doesn't just
exist in the science world.
And in fact, my friend James over at Amor Sciendi
has some ideas about how this concept applies
to the art world, as well.
Hey, Alex.
I find that people think the same way about artists.
We, for some reason, like to have
this image of starving artists toiling away
in her or his studio.
We love the image of artistic knowledge
created by a solitary, innovative genius.
If you want to explore this question in the arts,
head over to my journal, Amor Sciendi, after watching this.
Now, again, none of this is trying
to say that individual scientists or artists can't
make great discoveries or provide huge contributions
to the field.
That's not what I'm trying to say at all.
But I do think that modern day science really
is often the result of collaborations and of teamwork.
And I don't know.
I think a lot about the fact of, how
do we best portray that to people
outside of the scientific world?
I think people are often surprised when
I talk to them about the true teamwork
of a lab, and of collaborations, and
international collaborations.
And I don't know.
I think a lot about, how do we better translate that out
to other people?
So this is something that I've been thinking about
as I drink my tea.
But I want to hear from you, as well, on this.
Are you a scientist?
What has your experience with collaboration been?
Maybe you do work singularly and alone.
And I'd love to hear about those experiences.
Or maybe you do work as parts of large teams
to really push big things forward.
So let me know what your experience has been down below.
And if you're not a scientist, let me know.
When I asked you that question at the beginning, who
makes scientific discoveries, did you think of one person?
Or did you think of a team?
I really am curious of what perception is around this
and how we can try and better reflect
what reality is across different fields, which in some fields,
it is smaller groups or one person.
And in other fields, it's bigger.
So this is just my experience.
But I want to hear about your thoughts too.
A huge, gigantic thank you hug to my Patreon
patrons for supporting my content.
And thank you to you for watching this video.
Gigantic shout out to James from Amor Sciendi for really coming
up with this topic of the idea of teamwork and collaboration
in art and science.
You have to go check out his video.
It's a really great dive into this same thing in art.
So card up there.
Link down below.
And as always, remember to go forth and do science
collaboratively.
Good tea-- mint tea.