My own experience-based cynicism: I don’t think that most thesis advisors or department chairs are going to recommend this for their trainees and junior faculty. I’ll focus on one part, that above about, “… (a) scholarship, (b) education (teaching), (c) transferring knowledge to society, and (d ) playing a leadership role in the local community…”. These are WONDERFUL points of action. It’s how science SHOULD work. However, in trying to do these things, a scientist (especially a young one) will be “called on the carpet”, warned to focus, and to “stop wasting their time”. I’ve heard it over and over during training and I know that my advisors were always tired of “having that talk again”. I don’t think that my own experience is out of the ordinary, at least among like-minded scientists. If you want to do these things in addition to research, you’d better be prepared to bear some heat and frustration.

The “standard” that I’ve encountered has always been that scientists should concentrate on research and that other people should do the rest. I disagree with this notion, but there it is. For example, I think that science policy decisions should include input from… well… scientists. If you comment on policy, then you’re told “You should leave science for a career in politics”. If you comment on scientific conduct, then you are told “You should be an ethicist.” Say you want to teach (or even enjoy it – gasp), then you’re told that your best course is to leave the lab and join the faculty at a teaching college. Individual research progress is the bottom line in scientific training (maybe the ONLY line). My question and as Hood suggests, is why not do these important non-lab but scientifically relevant things – as a working scientist? As a person at the bench, doing research, yet simultaneously engaged in other (important) areas?

The biggest answer is easy: the clock only ticks so many times each day. Time spent doing “other stuff” is time away from research. While you are down in D.C. knocking on doors about the NIH budget, somebody else is back at home working at your bench. Dig? Also, lectures for the general public do good things for real people, but they don’t carry much weight in the old CV. Each scientist is competing with their colleagues for shrinking funding and rare positions. They are not going to be held to the standard they’ve set for their own life (no matter how well meaning), but against the one that others have set for theirs. That’s where the rubber meets the road. As such, how can we be expected (or even encouraged) as young investigators, to embrace the notion of the “citizen scientist”? I would that there was a way and while I suspect that there is, it’s not going to be easy to pull off. It’s going to take a profound change in the way that things are done during training and what we are prepared to accept as the measure of scientific success. Maybe the answer is that only a few will ever be able to make it work. More would be better.

Feynman AND Pauling? I’ll bet that was SWEET!