从我的两次半经历谈选专业--后记

我觉得这个例子比较经典，不吐不快。

一次，一个刚刚获得诺贝尔奖的以色列教授到我们那儿讲学。 引用了一篇几十年前的文献。 文献上很明确地说：这是以前别人做出的结果，我们重复不出来。 这个教授感叹人心不古，你看前人多实在，做不出来就是做不出来，end of the story. 要是换到了现在，为了能发表，就得拐弯抹角，牵强附会，讨论来讨论去，到处地扯，看得人一头雾水。 这就说明写文章得能写能吹。

这个有时做得出来，有时做不出来， 不可重复，经过多个实验室多年的努力（具体多少忘了）， 用教授的话说， 他自己就牺牲了几个博士后，终于发现是实验室最常用的酵母粉造的孽。 事后诸葛亮地说原因再简单不过了： 他们研究的是泛肽， 酵母是真核生物，用了酵母粉就污染了整个样品。

当时，我在底下听着，心里就想，我可不愿意做那个被牺牲的博士后，结果确找出这么乌龙的原因。

[Rainbowfriend]

I have had similar career path, from physics to biology to actuary (giving up wall street in favor of raising children in between). Thinking back on my friends who are still physicists and biologists, I realize that these risky research projects would only be carried out by postdocs and graduate students who are completely reliant on their advisors for their future. If they had any choices, they wouldn't be willing to risk their 5,10,15 years of life on these projects.

But science is a cruel field like that. Without the sacrifice of hundreds/thousands of failure, there'd be no success. It's just that those people who had done the failed experiment shouldn't be considered failures themselves, and should be able to go on and get decent academic jobs.

[名牛]

有幸拜读了您这个系列的文章，虽然和您所学的学科以及从事的工作完全不是一个领域，还是非常感谢您对于自己事业选择经验的一些分享，受用了。