I think the usefulness of the Gila monster story is that research that *looks* foolish at a distance often turns out to be useful. When senators get up and say "Can you believe we're paying people to do [stupid sounding thing]??" they are often describing research that looks a lot like characterizing the metabolism of Gila monsters. They are not picking on "curiosity-driven" projects, because, as far as I can tell, no government grant has ever been awarded for one. They are instead picking on projects that sound impractical when you don't fully understand the goals of those projects. The point of telling people about Gila monsters is showing that if you want effective weight loss drugs, you might have to do things that don't look much like developing a weight loss drug.
I do agree with this; I think what I’m gesturing at here and maybe not quite landing is two separate points that I feel in the conversations with science folks I’ve been having when this comes up, which is always in a “omg they’re so dumb, don’t they realize?!” preaching to the choir sort of way. And that’s 1. many of the people saying this stuff don’t realize how goal directed the work, or the nuances and complexity of what it takes to really get great products to happen. And a lot of ink is being spilled right now about how we have to just make tons and tons of data and then we’ll get the next Ozempic, but I worry that we’re missing the something of the stories that it takes to really drive new product development, and 2. I worry that the exasperated "back off man, I’m a scientist” vibe and in-group signalling that the statements usually give off are not going to really move the needle (at best!). That again, the nuances and complexity of what it takes to change minds and policies are something that we don’t often want to deal with as scientists.
So maybe I am a bit unfair in my characterization, or myself missing some of the nuance of the ways that these conversations travel! but my goal is to more shake up scientists and make them want to think a bit more about how these stories get made and how they move people.
The retrospective tidiness of discovery stories is a pet peeve of mine too, because it launders all the luck and dead ends out of the record. GLP-1 is a perfect example of a payoff nobody could have written into a grant proposal. How do you think funders should weigh that, given they cannot fund every piece of curiosity-driven work and still have to choose?
I think the usefulness of the Gila monster story is that research that *looks* foolish at a distance often turns out to be useful. When senators get up and say "Can you believe we're paying people to do [stupid sounding thing]??" they are often describing research that looks a lot like characterizing the metabolism of Gila monsters. They are not picking on "curiosity-driven" projects, because, as far as I can tell, no government grant has ever been awarded for one. They are instead picking on projects that sound impractical when you don't fully understand the goals of those projects. The point of telling people about Gila monsters is showing that if you want effective weight loss drugs, you might have to do things that don't look much like developing a weight loss drug.
I do agree with this; I think what I’m gesturing at here and maybe not quite landing is two separate points that I feel in the conversations with science folks I’ve been having when this comes up, which is always in a “omg they’re so dumb, don’t they realize?!” preaching to the choir sort of way. And that’s 1. many of the people saying this stuff don’t realize how goal directed the work, or the nuances and complexity of what it takes to really get great products to happen. And a lot of ink is being spilled right now about how we have to just make tons and tons of data and then we’ll get the next Ozempic, but I worry that we’re missing the something of the stories that it takes to really drive new product development, and 2. I worry that the exasperated "back off man, I’m a scientist” vibe and in-group signalling that the statements usually give off are not going to really move the needle (at best!). That again, the nuances and complexity of what it takes to change minds and policies are something that we don’t often want to deal with as scientists.
So maybe I am a bit unfair in my characterization, or myself missing some of the nuance of the ways that these conversations travel! but my goal is to more shake up scientists and make them want to think a bit more about how these stories get made and how they move people.
The retrospective tidiness of discovery stories is a pet peeve of mine too, because it launders all the luck and dead ends out of the record. GLP-1 is a perfect example of a payoff nobody could have written into a grant proposal. How do you think funders should weigh that, given they cannot fund every piece of curiosity-driven work and still have to choose?
Fantastic read. Thank you!
Excellent and much-needed, thanks for sharing!