Could it be the phenomenon we also see in areas such as Engineering were as people get more senior most transit into more managerial positions, where the mindset is a lot more about managing appearances and stakeholders, and saying the right things at the right time to the right people rather than the far more “it is as it is” mindset of those on the technical side?
I actually started by going into Science at Uni but ended up switching to Engineering (not many jobs for Experimentalist Physicists in my homeland) so never actually saw the actual Science career track from the inside through the eyes of somebody with enough professional experience to see the more subtle things about it, so I am genuinely curious if the Science career too has the phenomenon in Engineering of Senior people tending to be more Administrator/Manager and less Technical hence with more tendency to manage the subjective perception of reality of others to achieve personal and career goals and less of a desire for things to be as clear and as objective as possible.
Zoboomafoo@slrpnk.net 5 days ago
I feel like there’s a term for that sort of thinking…
lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 5 days ago
No True Scotsman? That could be true if the image is merely descriptive of our messy reality.
I see the image as including a prescriptive message that states an ethical ideal: a real scientist should welcome their findings challenged, even refuted. Science excels by dispelling falsehoods. That seems right.
in b4 “if by whiskey” 😄