General Question about Competition in Science?

[british_spy]

I'm a young student in the early stages of graduate school and I have this idealized view that information should be freely exchanged and that science is more enjoyable and productive when this happens. But a week ago I was asked by a collaborator not to discuss our project with a friend I was meeting that day (another scientist working in the same

Comments

[jaipur]

There are different attitudes toward that--I see fellow scientists as my friends, but some of my fellow scientists see other scientists only as "competitors", and don't talk freely about their latest ideas with anyone who has anything to do with their field. I think it definitely pays to pay attention to whom you are speaking--my graduate advisor once told me to keep an idea under my hat for while, and when I looked at him stunned he pointed out that Investigator X was visiting the lab that week, and Investigator X has a tendency to "forget where he heard things". I.e., my advisor had had experience with this researcher talking freely about ideas, and having the other guy run home and publish without giving any credit or additional discussion; so that ended that free exchange of information with that investigator. They were still friends, but my advisor just didn't give him the hot off the press ideas any more.

And certainly I've seen other labs where they never submit anything to a conference that isn't ready to be submitted to a journal, because they've had the experience of presenting something at a conference, talking to someone, and then having that person run home, whip up similar data, and publish as though it were their own idea. Me, I send anything I've got to a conference because I like the feedback, and most of what I do isn't easily re-created on the spur of the moment in another lab. It's easier to be cooperative in that environment.

So the answer is: it's complicated, like a lot of science. :) Or like anything dealing with lots of people. Or anything dealing with limited resources. There is a complex interplay of competition and cooperation.