I agree, I think it's victim blaming or a diversion tactic or something.
I think the real problem isn't so much the skillsets of the researcher involved as much as is what is implied about the environments and the vagaries thereof.
The argument this piece is referring to and the way it is responding to it seem to deflect attention from the real problems, or rather, recasts it in the wrong way. My focusing on whether or not Karikó is "too weird" or whether it's time to abandon "weirdness", it deflects attention from all the problems that people are dealing with in academics. For every person who is "weird", there are many others who are not and still get screwed, or still others who are not but also not particularly bright and still "milk" the system or are in the right place at the right time.
This whole debate strike me a bit like climate change debates, specifically the criticism that berating people for not recycling or using plastic straws or whatever is just blaming the victim, or is hiding the real offenders behind the curtain. In the same way it strikes me as kind of besides the point whether Karikó is weird or not, or how weird is too weird, or whatever. The bottom like is academics is no longer really about science in many fields, and not even really about how socially skilled you are, it's about politics and random dynamics of fate.
My impression of academics is that it blew way past "social skill" long ago and is now in a very different realm altogether. I've seen too much fraud and manipulation to blame anyone who has good ideas for "not being socially skilled enough."
I didn't read the original tweets but the idea that Karikó should be shamed for complaining because "that's just the way it is" seems like condoning the problems and then blaming her for calling them out. The next step is complaining about people calling out fraud because "that's just what everyone does".
For real. I was talking to an academic friend who claims that she doesn’t do politics then I had to remind her about the 5 steps she uses when she wants to get someone fired (starts with creating negative narratives then gets worse from there)
I think the real problem isn't so much the skillsets of the researcher involved as much as is what is implied about the environments and the vagaries thereof.
The argument this piece is referring to and the way it is responding to it seem to deflect attention from the real problems, or rather, recasts it in the wrong way. My focusing on whether or not Karikó is "too weird" or whether it's time to abandon "weirdness", it deflects attention from all the problems that people are dealing with in academics. For every person who is "weird", there are many others who are not and still get screwed, or still others who are not but also not particularly bright and still "milk" the system or are in the right place at the right time.
This whole debate strike me a bit like climate change debates, specifically the criticism that berating people for not recycling or using plastic straws or whatever is just blaming the victim, or is hiding the real offenders behind the curtain. In the same way it strikes me as kind of besides the point whether Karikó is weird or not, or how weird is too weird, or whatever. The bottom like is academics is no longer really about science in many fields, and not even really about how socially skilled you are, it's about politics and random dynamics of fate.
My impression of academics is that it blew way past "social skill" long ago and is now in a very different realm altogether. I've seen too much fraud and manipulation to blame anyone who has good ideas for "not being socially skilled enough."
I didn't read the original tweets but the idea that Karikó should be shamed for complaining because "that's just the way it is" seems like condoning the problems and then blaming her for calling them out. The next step is complaining about people calling out fraud because "that's just what everyone does".