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culture can be changed
and the third point I'd like to tell you about
is that
change is easy
is happening
and you can make a difference YCMAD
there's a movement in science called "nurturing scientists"
this generation is vere special, as you noticed, in the world
and one of the things is to improve different aspects of the world
and in a small way this is an arena that we can act in
maybe positively impact other arenas that need to be acted upon
because science is such a flagship of western culture
these ideas of rationality and objectivity are extremely powerful in our society
and I think that making a change inside science could impact the world in many ways
here's what to do or what we do, so I give these talks with the guitar
and everyplace I give a talk with the guitar
it ends up that one of the scientists gets up and organizes a group of new scientists
usually people who just started
beacuse that's a place, as I said, where you are full of fear
and you're open
and invite a workshop that for two days you can
learn this language, and a language that talks about interpersonal relationships
interpersonal communication,
and afterwards builds a nurturing group,
which is a support group that meets once every week or two weeks
so the first time this happened was in Israel, the Weizmann Institute
17 new PIs, many of them were skeptical, "what would emotions help us in getting tenure?"
but they still went and they, after the workshop, they were convinced
that these were the most important two days they've spent so far
they met the next week to talk about what have we used in this week
and instead of 17 stories they only got to hear one
something like: "I have a very talented student but they're just not motivated"
something like that and everyone had stories
and so, it was so rich
and they've been meeting now for a year,
this week they've invited a refresher workshop
and made a workshop for the new generation of young PIs
this group when you meet them, is empowered
they're leaders, they're not that frightened or defensive, or "everything is fine" new faculty
they're a union
taking care of graduate students and of themselves
and exploring what it means
what they want science to be like
I think what you can envision is that
change will take place in fifteen years, twenty years, when these people are
determining the systems
science will have a place, so much discussion,
that we'll know how to change the systems to better reflect our needs
like I said before about the refereeing song.
refereeing is a great process, but a lot of the dark sides of it
science has to do with ourselves and we feel isolated, we complain about it
we complain about the most original grants don't get funded
or promotion system
but scientists get to set the rules
the thing is that when they are isolated from eachother
because we have no place to discuss the culture of science
and so, the first step is to build this language of discussion
where it could change systems in science
so we have now group at Harvard Medical School and MIT,
Stanford
Israel, in several universities, and Barcelona
a paper about choosing a scientific problem I wrote in Molecular Cell, 2009
is an essay about the cloud
was recently shown to be the most read paper across all sciences in 2009
the next one is paper about chromatin structure
so there's a tremendous thirst
for this topic
we can see how
the need is, so clear
but it just needs a little bit of organization
and department heads and departments are signing on to it
because they realize it's coming from young faculty, from postdocs also
groups of postdocs have formed
tremendeously exciting and liberating
I always get one question before I...
which is
I see groups which are
very successful scientists
but have very hurtful relationships inside their lab
one thing I answer is
imagine that these people nurtured their lab members
what kind of science they could reach
and eventually you have to choose what kind of lab you want to run
so the last...
before we finish,
It's a song called 'Sunday at the lab'
'I kissed my wife and kids farewell I must go down to run my gel
I'm gonna spend another Sunday at the lab
My wife said "Uri, you gotta promise: you love me more than doing science"
I said "Honey, can we discuss this another day?, I must go away"
and resuspend myself down at the lab
My mom said "Son don't waste your life, go home and spend time with your wife"
"... you must have learned this from you father, why can't you be more like your brother
"... no son of mine spends Sunday's at the lab"
My dad said "Son you need a shrink" the shrink said "Son you need a drink"
those Rorschach spots reminded me of blots he said "Oh God"
"you obviously have an obsession compulsion to spend all your Sundays at the lab"
my wife she left me
my mom dissowned me
the shrink pretends he doesn't know me
cause I can't be myself without some buffer on the shelf
so if you need me you can phone me at the lab
I'm gonna spend another sunday at the lab'
actually I have a wonderful family this song isn't about me
using this approach, our lab's culture has become very very
collaborative and nurturing
science is at an upwards spiral of creativity, discovery
it's a great pleasure to come to the lab in the morning
and to leave before the sun goes down
thank you very much