In the world of busy worker bees, there’s only one specimen that can do all and any tasks necessary: the scientist. While other lower animals can often be found in concerted work, where opportunity costs and benefits of specialization define who does what, the scientist is well above the need for help. Preferring solitude to socialization and caffeine to cooperation, the solitary scientist is an image of good old days, when society was driven forward by heroic explorers and experimenters.
How does the scientist retain this mastery over all matters? The answer is a combination of two issues. First of all, due to the solitary nature of the scientist, each one prefers to work on issues on their own. Trying to cooperate would result in loss of status, because the other individual might be better at something (gasp!). After all, isn’t image above all? Better to do your web app for the experiment from scratch, rather than enlist the help of a computer scientist. On another level, the inclusion of additional people would mean a larger group for dividing spoils. You see, publishing a paper just by yourself in The New England Hyperprogressive Journal of Foucauldian Energy Fields is surely better than one in Nature, if in the latter you have to share the spoils with other people. Working alone, you can be the heroic explorer of your dreams. Working together, you’re just a cog in a machine, and nobody will remember your name. Especially if that other one is the first author.
How does the scientist retain this mastery over all matters? The answer is a combination of two issues. First of all, due to the solitary nature of the scientist, each one prefers to work on issues on their own. Trying to cooperate would result in loss of status, because the other individual might be better at something (gasp!). After all, isn’t image above all? Better to do your web app for the experiment from scratch, rather than enlist the help of a computer scientist. On another level, the inclusion of additional people would mean a larger group for dividing spoils. You see, publishing a paper just by yourself in The New England Hyperprogressive Journal of Foucauldian Energy Fields is surely better than one in Nature, if in the latter you have to share the spoils with other people. Working alone, you can be the heroic explorer of your dreams. Working together, you’re just a cog in a machine, and nobody will remember your name. Especially if that other one is the first author.
A scientist making a display of his fitness to a competitor.
This way of noncooperation manifests itself also in the physical structure of scientist life. Whereas other species tend to have open-plan dwellings that promote interaction, scientists’ lairs are typically made of single-person rooms. This ensures that each individual can stay nonproductive at their own pace, and means that interaction tends to happen only when the scientists gather around the local coffee pond to drink. Even that isn’t universal: in many societies, scientists have long learned that they can avoid these semi-forced interactions by having their own source of nourishment – a small espresso machine. This is a great way to show that you are not dependent on the tribe for anything. In contrast, if you are forced to accept other scientists in your territory, it shows that you have not earned your stripes to obtain the honorary title of a doctor. Or if you have, then sharing territory is a sign of weakness, both of your research and yourself.
As the night appears, almost nothing changes. Since in daytime everyone would be sitting behind closed doors anyway, just by observation you can’t tell it’s already late. The disappearance of administrative personnel, however, signals the end of the hottest time of day. But if you could see behind those closed doors, you could find many a scientist, still procrastinating profusely. It’s a world of publish or perish, and there’s this critical deadline that you are close to missing (because you just spent two months learning how to do PHP, instead of that conference paper).
As the night appears, almost nothing changes. Since in daytime everyone would be sitting behind closed doors anyway, just by observation you can’t tell it’s already late. The disappearance of administrative personnel, however, signals the end of the hottest time of day. But if you could see behind those closed doors, you could find many a scientist, still procrastinating profusely. It’s a world of publish or perish, and there’s this critical deadline that you are close to missing (because you just spent two months learning how to do PHP, instead of that conference paper).
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