We all of us have heard about the fact that Einstein was a less-than faithful husband and how at the Nobel Prize awards Willard Libby failed to mention that his graduate students James R. Arnold and Ernest C. Anderson did much of the work on his radiocarbon dating technique. This page will be set aside for reporting similar stories we've experienced about less-than-mensch-like scientists. In the interests of keeping clear of slander suits, all names and identifying criteria for the miscreants will be deleted.
De-constructive Criticism
At a PhD defense I attended in the 1980s, a well-regarded faculty member stood up and announced that the dissertation had a "negative net worth," and the fact of it's being written was "damaging to the field as a whole".
What Did You Just Ask Me?
At a university OB-GYN clinic, a resident asked "Do you have any of the DES stigmata?" I blinked and told him that wasn't a very good question to ask a Catholic. If he'd waited until the physical exam, he might have noted, as did a previous doctor, that I was "a textbook case of DES-induced deformity." Gee, thanks, doc. (NB: Women exposed to DES in utero have an increased incidence of structural changes in cervix and uterus.)
I just read in the Chicago Tribune that the Chicago Medical School will be renamed the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science (after the unsung female partner of Watson and Crick who cracked the DNA code). In fairness to Watson and Crick, Franklin had died when they got the Nobel Prize and nobody who is dead gets one of those; but they still don't say "Watson, Crick, and Franklin", do they?
Just ran across this in Nature, looks like it might fit somewhere in here:
Schroedinger's Mousetrap
De-constructive Criticism
At a PhD defense I attended in the 1980s, a well-regarded faculty member stood up and announced that the dissertation had a "negative net worth," and the fact of it's being written was "damaging to the field as a whole".
What Did You Just Ask Me?
At a university OB-GYN clinic, a resident asked "Do you have any of the DES stigmata?" I blinked and told him that wasn't a very good question to ask a Catholic. If he'd waited until the physical exam, he might have noted, as did a previous doctor, that I was "a textbook case of DES-induced deformity." Gee, thanks, doc. (NB: Women exposed to DES in utero have an increased incidence of structural changes in cervix and uterus.)
I just read in the Chicago Tribune that the Chicago Medical School will be renamed the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science (after the unsung female partner of Watson and Crick who cracked the DNA code). In fairness to Watson and Crick, Franklin had died when they got the Nobel Prize and nobody who is dead gets one of those; but they still don't say "Watson, Crick, and Franklin", do they?
Just ran across this in Nature, looks like it might fit somewhere in here:
Schroedinger's Mousetrap