I wanted to share an article I read recently on todays scientific culture and how this reflects on young scientists.
As a "young" scientist I found the article of extreme interest, as it highlights much of my limited view of the system I hope to join. It taps into the general feeling of being considered (and perhaps feeling) inadequate based on your publication rate and eventually forced into publishing anything and everything you can, in the vain hope that you can carve out a meaningful career or at least not have to get a real job.
But what really struck me most was the authors comparison with a young Darwin, and the time he spent nurturing his ideas without the necessity to publish them into bite size portions. Of course much has changed and the birth of "big science" can be considered a hugely positive step in its advancement of ideas, but it does highlight a need for us up-and-coming whippersnappers to take the time to absorb and digest ideas, rather than just spitting out whatever we feel we can publish.
