Failing, upwards. Survivorship bias, scientific excellence, & social media
Channel: nicholas holmes
Date: 2022-10-01

A talk given to a group of mostly early-career researchers (post-docs & research fellows) giving my personal takes on:

1) Survivorship bias - how we typically only hear advice from or about academics who succeed.

2) Scientific excellence - how grant funding agencies often say they only fund 'excellent' research, yet no-one seems to be able to say what 'excellent' research is; and how peer review and journal impact factors do not help here.

3) Social media - what it can be good for, what to be careful about, and the experiment I did in 2021, criticising all my own research papers, one tweet at a time (https://twitter.com/TheHandLab/status/1377760796130869248).

Along the way, some personal views and critiques of academic life.