So, whenever our department at school has a seminar speaker in town, we (the grad students) get to have lunch with them and chit-chat about what we do, what they do, research in general, etc. This guy, Dr. Christopher Ellis, is from the University of Western Ontario and is in the Department of Medical Biophysics. Anyway, coming from Canada, he’s exposed to a relatively different research and academic environment than we are, so he had a few fresh perspectives on scientific research in general.
The thing that struck me most, though, was a story he told us about a class awhile back where he asked graduate students: “Why do we publish papers?” He said the responses were very interesting, ranging from “To get grants” to “To get a good postdoctoral fellowship (i.e. job).” He couldn’t remember if anyone said “To further our understanding of science.”
His point, as he then told us, was this: researchers create knowledge, and that’s something to be admired and respected.? While promotions and funding are important, we should never forget that we’re finding new things out that no one has done before.
Regardless, I had just never heard to anyone refer to research as “creating knowledge.” Certainly an interesting concept, realizing that for all the knowledge and information that there is on Wikipedia and in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, there’s still more to be found.
Sounded pretty cool to me, I guess… 😛
