There are so many different types of researchers. Weather researchers, climate researchers, brain researchers. And within those categories, the nuances (like memory researchers).
When someone says they are an X researcher, what does that imply to you? In other words, what qualifies? Does it just imply that they are curious about X? Or perhaps that they know a bit more about it - perhaps they've mastered some scholarly literature or they've done at least one experiment? Or maybe even published a paper in a peer reviewed journal? Or maybe even more - perhaps they have a body of work on the topic; maybe they even run a lab (and have grants to support X research).
On one hand, no one should gate keep curiosity! On the other, certain terms imply knowledge and qualifications. I'm a "researcher". But just because I know a lot about memory doesn't automatically mean that people should listen to me about climate or economics. And I once read a very good book about ecosystems, but I don't think that means I should quality as an ecosystem researcher. So what, then, might instead?
@NicoleCRust for me, the crucial is the "researcher" part and thag means "contributed significantly to our body of knowledge in this area". This may result in paper(s) or one extremely impactful paper or a book or something else, in any case something peer reviewed. Preferably halfway recently or you are a former researcher (which is also fine and cool and I will likely believe you when you talk about basics but possibly less if you strongly critique newest research).
@vicgrinberg@NicoleCRust To me it just means that researching X is a large part of your job. I think researchers who have just finished their PhD are researchers, even if they haven’t published much yet.
But: there are people whose job implies large amount of researching but who are not actually doing it. Those don't count. And there are folks who do active research & publish in their free time (emeriti, independent researchers, I know folks who run a company but still do some science on the side ...), so it's not tied to the job.
@vicgrinberg You said the crucial thing for you is publications. So if someone is a postdoc and spends their whole day doing research, but none of it has been published yet, are they a researcher? @NicoleCRust
@benjamingeer@NicoleCRust let's re-phrase: would I believe them talking about the research done during their PhD that they published? Yes. Would I believe them taking about their unpublished research? - with a big, big grain of salt if at all since I obviously cannot judge if this was real reseach and have no external judgement on it I can use to help me
@benjamingeer@NicoleCRust if someone has not published (in a broad sense, does not mean papers) for a decade? Not a researcher, no. No way to tell whether they are researching fairies or intelligent design or whatever.
@vicgrinberg In the humanities, people are supposed to turn their PhD thesis into a book and publish it, but this can take years. Meanwhile they may be employed as postdocs, and probably have very few publications. Yet it's often said that PhD students and postdocs are the best experts on their topic (better than their supervisors), because they had to read and critique a huge amount of research on that topic when working on their thesis. @NicoleCRust
@benjamingeer as said in the thread, this is field dependent. None of the humanities folks I know spent 3 years of their postdoc just sitting in their office, not making their works public in some way (essay, conference contributions, ...) @NicoleCRust
@benjamingeer someone spends 10 years developing a maths theory, not talking to anyone. Someone else does the same for the theory that the Earth is flat and in the centre of the universe (I got long letters from such folks, telling me about their rrsults!). Can you tell the difference while the 10 years are ongoing? I can't so I will not see either of them as a researcher until I see some proof. @NicoleCRust
@vicgrinberg The difference is that one of them is doing their PhD or postdoc in maths at a university and the other one isn't. This is why we have universities.
First you said you wanted significant contributions, "paper(s) or one extremely impactful paper or a book or something else, in any case something peer reviewed". Now you say essays and conference contributions (neither of which are peer reviewed) are OK. If it's not in your field, how will you judge it?
@benjamingeer I listed examples from my field and nearby field. Essay and conf contributions can be peer reviewed or similar.
Both folks from my example can be profs. University is hint to real research, but not everyone working at one is doing it.
And I'm not writing a full detailed essay here, I'm writing comments limited to 500 signs. If you want an in depth discussion, this is the wrong place for it.
@vicgrinberg I'm just saying that if you only count people who have already had a major impact in their field as researchers, you're excluding a lot of early-career researchers. Publications are hard to evaluate if they're not in your field. We all know that rubbish sometimes gets published in peer reviewed journals. In practice, we tend to look at the reputation of the institution or department that the person is working in.
I wonder about distinguishing professional and academic researchers too?
There are roles (in industry and government at least) called “researcher” where the task is basically collect data, analyze, and report findings. But the scope of inquiry is extremely limited compared with what an academic researcher might do.
@scottmatter@benjamingeer@NicoleCRust for me the difference is really the "contributed significantly to our body of knowledge in this area" so in the end (peer-)reviewed publications of some kind.
Troubled a bit by the old “applied vs pure” research dichotomy here though, and how that plays out in universities in terms of prestige, promotion, and funding
@scottmatter@benjamingeer@NicoleCRust yeah, agreed - that's why for me I like to keep it open in terms of what kind the contribution to knowledge has. I'm biased by my field (papers) and what I know from art history through friends (books) in my examples, but there is more (patents? code? algorithms - though those often result in papers, too ...).
It's also interesting how pure vs. applied plays out in different areas + funding situations (in DE: pure is hard to get funding for).
I'm tempted to approach this question by asking how a "researcher" differs from an "expert".
Personally, I'd expect an expert to be able to summarize, recall, and present knowledge in their stated field.
However, I'd expect a researcher to be able to synthesize new knowledge. Perhaps by gathering new data (as in an experiment or survey). Or by performing analysis on existing data (say, a researcher of history drawing new connections between primary sources).
The reason I find this distinction useful is because it invites a followup question: If a researcher is expected to synthesize knowledge, what knowledge counts as new?
Compare three examples:
a peer-reviewed paper describing an experiment
a report on the causes of a structural failure
and a science fair project
In each case, the author is performing research and contributing knowledge to their community. But since the community changes, the standards of rigor change as well.
I would argue you can't define who counts as a researcher, without taking into account which community they're acting for.
🧵 (2/2)
Apologies for the wordy answer, this thought got away from me >_>
@analog_ashley
Great point! The field has built things up to require some bravado to declare "Yes, I'm computational". What qualifies? Is y=mx+b enough? Does x need to be a vector? Or do you need to be able to define what a "Jacobian" is?
Some of my best computational insights have been of the form: if you and and subtract and apply a threshold, then ....
Add comment