• Question: do you get trouble of people that disagree with the work you do?

    Asked by sophiecherry to Sharon, Daniel on 15 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Daniel Richardson

      Daniel Richardson answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Scientists can get quite heated when the disagree… The first time I gave a talk at a big conference, as a first year grad student, I was presenting some data that suggested that another scientist had done his experiment incorrectly and there was another interpretation to his data. I found out later that he was so angry that he shaved his head specially for the conference. He stood up at the start of my talk, glared at me, and waited till I had finished. He then grabbed the mic like Eminem and shouted his question at me. Well, it wasn’t really a question. Unless you count ‘why don’t you **** off?’ as a question.
      I should point out, this wasn’t a important or life saving issue. It was a tiny question about exactly how the brain processes one particular type of grammatical construction. But this guy had spent his life investigating that one corner of the universe, and it was very very important to him…

    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Hi sophie, no, I’ve never had any trouble with people disagreeing with my research!!!

Comments

  • Photo: Zoe

    Zoe commented on :

    research depends on critical review of work between scientists. When I do some experiments, they are published and presented at conferences where the experiments and conclusions are discussed and debated. Sometimes people disagree with how an experiment has been conducted or the conclusions I have drawn, but this is part of the scientific process and how we all learn 🙂

  • Photo: 09crumptonpop

    09crumptonpop commented on :

    I think that scientists will always disagree because its constantly being question and people always think they are right 🙂