Anyone else think neuroscience is boring?

[HansSpemann]

If physics were any more boring, it would be called neuroscience

Seriously though, I am just curious because there have been so, so many threads as of recently from people interested in neuroscience. I guess I'm the only person interested in cell/developmental biology--or at least it would seem that way

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[tiedyeddog]

What about developmental neuroscience?

Neuroscience is a rather large field of study... I think some aspects of it would bore me to death (cognitive) but I think I would like molecular and developmental much more.

 

[Vader]

no

 

[dl2dp2]

I have done neuroscience for more than just a few years, and let me tell you when I go to conferences, it constantly pops up to me that this is all very boring.

Cell molecular: not neuroscience. tell us nothing about the brain and how it works...might as well do chemistry

Slice physiology: same sort of tedious experiments over and over

Systems: ugly engineers pretending to be cool

Computational: rare genius overshadowed by hordes of uncreative bores

cognitive/behavioral: cool in theory, uncreative and not rigorous in practice.

Did I cover everything?

Incidentally, some of the most interesting talks are given by MDs about diseases, which probably shows that I'm more interested in translational research. But then at the end of the day you ask yourself the same question: what field is interesting? Answer: none.

Cancer biology: same molecules, same techniques, same lack of progress

Molecular/Cell biology: very rare big discoveries, mostly bores, tedious techniques, laborious protocols

Developmental biology: weird terminology, too many phenomenon not enough mechanism

Bioengineering: do I really care about how to set up an infared controlled preamp?

Chemistry: hmm, no comment

Physics and math: interesting in principle, but this ship has sailed.

Humanities: chaotic mess, not fundable

The more you know, the more you realize that every field is boring. In comparison, neuroscience is probably the least boring on average, since it at least brands itself as explaining something about the brain. Of course, at the end of the day it also depends on the ability of the faculty to market it. These days I sort of wonder if "interestingness" of a field, like "beauty" of a person, isn't just yet another marketing ploy driven by some meta-sociological undercurrent. We are subconscious consumers of some dreadful intellectual fad, like how absurd "skininess" and "muscularity" are fads of sexually dimorphic attractiveness.

Even within a field, people bicker at each other. Audition people look down on olfaction people. Mouse people look down on c. elegans. For small fields, they don't get their own conferences, so they just attend one portion of some larger conference and ignore the rest of the field.

Most working neuroscientists, and most working scientists in general, don't work purely out of "intrinsic interest". This is probably one of the most important transition in my way of thought from undergrad to grad school. Neuroscience isn't a calling. Science isn't a calling. It's a career.

Anyone else thinks law is boring? Politics? Football?

 

[tco]

Maybe you just need a different career. Go find your calling.

 

[reine1jb]

how is cell and molecular biology not relevant in neuroscience?

Didn't eric kandel win the nobel prize for figuring out Long term potentiation? I think showing that the brain changes at the molecular level to facilitate learning and memory tells a lot about how the brain works

 

[tiedyeddog]

Anyone else thinks law is boring? Politics? Football?

I think will law is the most boring subject on this earth.

 

[strangeglove]

Certainly the very descriptive neuroscience that they teach in the first year of medical school is boring, especially to those who are actually interested in neuroscience research. The field is so vast that it's hard to call it boring as a type of science. And if you find the unifying idea of neuroscience - the elucidation of the biological underpinnings of the mind - to be boring, well, then I think you are probably lacking in some basic level of curiosity. I mean, there's a reason why so many TV shows and and NY Times articles are written about his field. I agree that there are some approaches (and their attendant personalities) that are more tedious than others, but this to me does not invalidate the whole field.

 

[dl2dp2]

how is cell and molecular biology not relevant in neuroscience?

Didn't eric kandel win the nobel prize for figuring out Long term potentiation? I think showing that the brain changes at the molecular level to facilitate learning and memory tells a lot about how the brain works

there are rare examples for which this happens. if you believe you are the next Eric Kandel, be my guest. Most of cell/mol papers, though, are basically irrelevant. you'll know once you actually do a few years of research.

There are interesting things in every field. The more important question is, is neuroscience more or less interesting than most of the other fields. This answer tends to be true. Not EVERY project, however, is interesting. In fact, at least 90% of projects are boring. Just because your "calling" is a particular field doesn't mean that you have to be enthusiastic about everything in that field. Similarly, just because your "calling" is something, doesn't mean that you'll be good at it. Many neuroscientists are not qualified to do neuroscience and produce poor (but perhaps flashy) research, and yet they are unwavering in their "scientific curiosity". I think that kind of "calling" is a waste of NIH money and damaging to scientific progress, and this way of thinking is one of the key differences between a newbie and a professional scientist. Professionalism in science requires a realistic assessment of what may be interesting and what is achievable, what is boring and what is fundable. A large part of science is not driven by that inspired drive to discover something wonderful, but by an insipid drive to flush out a vague minute idea with perfectionism. By making science a "calling", it is implied that somehow these clearly boring work is devoid of value.

If something's truly your "calling" you'd do it even if it's boring. 😛

 

[anemone2]

I think you are probably lacking in some basic level of curiosity.

Enough said. Sloux, I'm sorry (neuro)science bores you, but that's really your problem and not the field's 🙂

As for "callings" vs. "professionalism" - if something is your calling you wouldn't think it's boring. Obviously scientific curiosity isn't enough to make a good scientist - the realism and good experimental design are a must as well. But without scientific curiosity why would anyone bother designing those experiments in the first place?

Finally.. "Most of cell/mol papers, though, are basically irrelevant. you'll know once you actually do a few years of research."

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. You're welcome to your opinion and all, but that's one of the most ignorant statements I've read on this forum. I think you're seriously confused about how scientific progress comes about in any field.

 

[malchik]

Finally.. "Most of cell/mol papers, though, are basically irrelevant. you'll know once you actually do a few years of research."

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. You're welcome to your opinion and all, but that's one of the most ignorant statements I've read on this forum. I think you're seriously confused about how scientific progress comes about in any field.

Actually I think it's a pretty mature and sophisticated statement. And both I and my erstwhile advisor, who is the chief editor of a major journal, tend to agree. Admit it, 90% of papers in ANY field are worthless masturbatory exercises in banal repetition of the same tired approaches. This is because people have to build their careers and to do that you have to publish, and to do that you can't take too many risks. It's the structure of the profession that is to blame. Stop rewarding crappy publications with nothing novel to report!

 

[reine1jb]

there are rare examples for which this happens. if you believe you are the next Eric Kandel, be my guest. Most of cell/mol papers, though, are basically irrelevant. you'll know once you actually do a few years of research.

There are interesting things in every field. The more important question is, is neuroscience more or less interesting than most of the other fields. This answer tends to be true. Not EVERY project, however, is interesting. In fact, at least 90% of projects are boring. Just because your "calling" is a particular field doesn't mean that you have to be enthusiastic about everything in that field. Similarly, just because your "calling" is something, doesn't mean that you'll be good at it. Many neuroscientists are not qualified to do neuroscience and produce poor (but perhaps flashy) research, and yet they are unwavering in their "scientific curiosity". I think that kind of "calling" is a waste of NIH money and damaging to scientific progress, and this way of thinking is one of the key differences between a newbie and a professional scientist. Professionalism in science requires a realistic assessment of what may be interesting and what is achievable, what is boring and what is fundable. A large part of science is not driven by that inspired drive to discover something wonderful, but by an insipid drive to flush out a vague minute idea with perfectionism. By making science a "calling", it is implied that somehow these clearly boring work is devoid of value.

If something's truly your "calling" you'd do it even if it's boring. 😛

While Kandel's gift to neuroscience may be rare there are plenty of other examples like signaling pathways such as notch which help to determine cell type or any number of secreted molecules that help guide axons to their rightful place....

I think I understand what you're trying to say but I also think it is very unrealistic to think that most papers published should substantially contribute to the knowledge of science (ie kandel). I mean I understand the nature of funding and how there is a pressure to publish and how that could create a plethora of papers that you may not deem paramount to the advancement of science. But if you look at our knowledge of cell and molecular biology, we are probably at the very tip of the iceberg in regards to the amount of knowledge there is to actually gain. Any paper that elucidates a previously unknown mechansim for regulation of a gene or whatever is worthwhile in my opinion. maybe not nature, cell, science, ect worthwhile but it does promote increase knowledge. Science does not move fast. I mean how many times do you think kandel published smaller maybe at the time less significant articles before he actually won the noble prize. Big discoveries (usually) are a large amount of previously known information that is finally wrapped up into a nice little bow..

My assessment is oversimplified and generalized but anyways...

I also think law would probably be the most boring...

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

I sat in on a neuroscience conference last week and found most of it to be mind-numbingly boring.

Sluox is exactly right. I'd go even further and say that 99% of what's published is forgettable worthless details which do nothing to enhance the bigger picture or help us understand Life.

 

[URHere]

I sat in on a neuroscience conference last week and found most of it to be mind-numbingly boring.

Sluox is exactly right. I'd go even further and say that 99% of what's published is forgettable worthless details which do nothing to enhance the bigger picture or help us understand Life.

Keep in mind that neuroscience is a much younger field than many other branches of biology. Very little of the "bigger picture" in any field is discovered right at the beginning, and that can be both very annoying and very intriguing.

Neuroscience isn't for everyone, but that's more due to personal preference than anything else.

 

[Vader]

I sat in on a neuroscience conference last week and found most of it to be mind-numbingly boring.

Sluox is exactly right. I'd go even further and say that 99% of what's published is forgettable worthless details which do nothing to enhance the bigger picture or help us understand Life.

You have to read the right journals... 😉

Most of the neuro stuff that gets published in Science, Nature, Cell, Neuron or Nature Neuroscience represents high-impact exciting advances in the field. Not to say that papers not in these journals are not exciting--in some cases there are some very cool papers that appear in lower impact factor journals.

BTW, if you haven't already, read the following article in the New Yorker:
"The Itch" by Atul Gawande
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all

Now how can you reasonably say that neuroscience is boring--this is really cool stuff! 🙂

 

[Spacedman]

I sat in on a neuroscience conference last week and found most of it to be mind-numbingly boring.

Sluox is exactly right. I'd go even further and say that 99% of what's published is forgettable worthless details which do nothing to enhance the bigger picture or help us understand Life.

putting it on a lil thick there? while i agree that there's a whole lot of BS in neuroscience (only *slightly* more BS than what's published in clinical journals, btw) you can't predict what line of "forgettable, worthless" research is going to explode into something useful. all we can see, in hindsight of course, is that major advances (neuroscience, cancer, whatever) don't usually happen by design. BOLD/fMRI? RNAi? channel rhodopsin? gleevec? yah, it probably was really boring until it suddenly became really, really interesting.

on the other hand, most conferences/talks bore me to tears, which is more often the fault of the speaker and overly comfortable seating rather than the subject at hand. there is nothing worth saying that takes more than an hour, that's for damn sure.

 

[GWD]

You have to read the right journals... 😉

Most of the neuro stuff that gets published in Science, Nature, Cell, Neuron or Nature Neuroscience represents high-impact exciting advances in the field. Not to say that papers not in these journals are not exciting--in some cases there are some very cool papers that appear in lower impact factor journals.

BTW, if you haven't already, read the following article in the New Yorker:
"The Itch" by Atul Gawande
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all

Now how can you reasonably say that neuroscience is boring--this is really cool stuff! 🙂

Wow.. that's a really interesting article.

It really amazes me it took them so long to change the way of thinking about those types of disorders though... it just seems pretty intuitive to me.

I'm a transplant surgery guy myself, but I've always been fascinated by the phenomenon of phantom limb (what's the clinical term?)

Can you recommend any good review articles?

 

[Vader]

Wow.. that's a really interesting article.

It really amazes me it took them so long to change the way of thinking about those types of disorders though... it just seems pretty intuitive to me.

I'm a transplant surgery guy myself, but I've always been fascinated by the phenomenon of phantom limb (what's the clinical term?)

Can you recommend any good review articles?

A couple of good reviews:
Ramachandran VS. Plasticity and functional recovery in neurology. Clin Med. 2005 Jul-Aug;5(4):368-73. Review.

Ramachandran VS, Rogers-Ramachandran D. Phantom limbs and neural plasticity. Arch Neurol. 2000 Mar;57(3):317-20.

More detailed review:
Ramachandran VS, Hirstein W. The perception of phantom limbs. The D. O. Hebb lecture. Brain. 1998 Sep;121 ( Pt 9):1603-30. Review.

Original detailed description:
Weir MS. Injuries of Nerves and Their Consequences. Philadelphia, Pa: Lippincott; 1872.

Enjoy! 🙂