The only real work

A lot of arguments about science, and particularly scientific publication, seem based around an underlying difference of opinion about what work is worthy. 

I get the strong sense that for some researchers, running experiments is the only work that matters.

Anything else is just a nuisance, a distraction, a thing that no “real scientist” would do if they weren’t forced to do so by career necessity.

On search committees, it was job candidates who kept asking about how they could get out of teaching.

Online, I think this attitude informs a lot of discussion around publishing and peer review. 

Submitting to journals? Nuisance. For some people, science paradise would be a website that automatically pushes out protocols and data and protocols, so anyone who wanted could use the data. But no time wasted on pesky explaining work to other people. Just pure flow in data collection.

Peer reviewing? That takes me away from data collection, so you better pay me to make it worth my time. 

Proofreading and editing? Not even real work. This may partly explain why some people keep asking, “Why aren’t all scientific article free?” Because they just can’t imagine that managing articles is real work that deserves fair compensation.

To be clear, I have no problem with anyone saying, “Running experiments is what I value and how I want to spend my time.” But other people should get to value other things.

Maybe we are doing a better job now of recognizing the labour that goes into scientific research. More people are rightfully insisting that doing research should be treated as work, not a vocation or calling or passion (you know, things that don’t get you paid). But I feel like we not doing such a great job of recognizing that what other people do that supports research is also worthwhile work.