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Advice for Paul of Michigan
January 2nd, 2012
Question: Hi Scott – my name is Paul B***** from Oxford, Michigan. I am a type 1 diabetic, diagnosed at age six. I am now studying Cell and Molecular Biology as an undergrad at Grand Valley State University. I was reading your work, and I’ve become fascinated with the idea of bioengineering and immunology. It’s amazing what you’re doing, and I’d love to do similar work one day – my plan is to attend grad school at the University of Michigan, maybe focusing in immunology. I’d love to hear about recent findings in your research and what you’re currently working on, and what you predict 2012 will bring? Also hoping human trials aren’t too far out of reach. Keep up the great work! Thanks for your time, much appreciated. Regards, Paul B.
By having a goal, Paul, you are moving on the right track because you are moving. We certainly need smart and motivated researchers in bioengineering. My next post will be about our recent findings and our current work, so for now let me just offer some advice.
In school, in your reading, in your laboratory work, you are filling your mind and learning to use your hands. Learn something about everything. And learn more than anyone else about something. If you want to move into bioengineering, by all means study bioengineering, but I sincerely suggest that, as an immature field, you might best master bioengineering by first mastering its older sister, organic chemistry. On my office shelf are bioengineering texts and chemistry and biochemistry texts. I consult the chemistry texts twenty times more often than bioengineering texts.
He who wishes to contribute to physics should study mathematics. She who wishes to contribute to biology or medicine should study chemistry. As I have have lamented on this site, researchers in islet transplantation rarely understand oxygen transport into islets. And low oxygen is the most common cause of death of encapsulated items. They have a shoe nailed to the floor and wonder why they go in circles.
So learn, work hard, and keep you eye on the prize. So much for approved advice. Now I’ll tell you a few things you don’t know.
First, nobody knows nothing. The confidence of doctors and scientists is a facade. Much of what you read or hear is wrong, and most of what people write and say is much less certain than they let on. ”You can learn a great deal from newspapers if you read with sufficient contempt.” Understand that your brain evolved to facilitate social intercourse and coordinated human action, that is our species’ evolutionary leap; but that same mind is poorly adapted to logic. We leap to conclusions and dig in our heels. It is hard work to think logically. So most people don’t. When you are wrong you have to admit it to yourself. Better to be consistent than right it seems.
If you choose to think, and it is a choice, stick to the facts and learn to set aside the systematic errors of your own mind. This is a hot topic (e.g. Freeman Dyson’s review of Daniel Kahneman’s book) so I am sure you can find much to read on it. To find the truth apply cold logic to the facts. Get the facts from primary sources, not what others think the primary sources say. If you want to know what Jesus said and did read the Gospel of Mark in original Greek. If you want to know the real result of an experiment talk to the scientist (or better yet the technician) who did it. If you must read the publication read the footnotes with skepticism.
I have receieved much advice in my life, much worthless or even a stumbling block. Here are the things that actually have helped. (This does not mean they necessarily will help you Paul.) One of them is my own observation.
There are three ways to succeed in life: manage money, manage people, or invent.
Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. And always have some red in your tie at the first job interview.
Get work at the place you want to work, any job, and within two years you will have the job you should have at the place you want to work.
Every lie is a wish. Every wish is a lie.
When you approach a vortex (e.g., a tornado) enter facing the direction you would like to exit.
Scott King
