"Good work"

I've been at the Gordon Conference on Phosphorylation & G-Protein Mediated Signaling Networks all week. Although maybe only one of the ~six people who read this blog will have any idea what that title means, it is actually quite and important conference in my field. My advisor presented my data the other day and then I presented a poster on Monday and Tuesday. I had lots of people come by and talk to me about my results. In fact, I was talking for most of the two hours each day. I think that it was well received. This morning as I was walking back from breakfast a fairly well respected leader in G protein signaling, whom I have not met personally, walked by me and said, "Good work." I have to admit that this put a bit of spring in my step.

Happy Manuscript Day! :-)

After months of work, last Friday I finally turned a draft of my article manuscript over to my boss. I have really been working hard to get this together and I began to wonder if I would ever get it done. It took me so long that I was feeling down on myself and my ability to organize my thoughts and write about my research. After staring at it for so long and struggling to get it written I could not look at it with an objective view, so I was worried about how it would read. As of this morning, the boss still had not read it and I was dreading what he would say. Then, this afternoon he sent me the following email.

You have made my day/week/month. Read over your draft very quickly. Entire manuscript is excellent. There will be very little to change. Keep doing exactly what you are doing.

Oh boy, can I tell you the relief that this brought me. When he came out into the lab I thanked him for his comments and compliments. Then he said, "I don't want this to go to your head but in the ten years since I have been doing this job, this is the best manuscript I have received yet."

I have written a number of grant applications since I have been in this lab and my boss has been very happy with these so it shouldn't be a surprise that he is happy with my manuscript. I just had such a hard time getting it to sound good to myself and it took so much longer than I thought it should have that I was worried about it. Tonight I'll sleep with a lighter feeling on my shoulders.

Why do evolutionists feel so threatened by creationists

A friend, and fellow conservative/Christian/scientist, pointed me to an American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology website, where they have a link for a symposium titled "Teaching the Science of Evolution Under the Threat of Alternative Views". He pointed out the use of the word "Threat" and asked the question of why are alternative views a threat in science. After all, if we as scientists do not allow ourselves to question current theories, we will inevitably theorize ourselves into an erroneous corner from which we cannot escape. The need to think critically about all of the science I encounter was pounded into me while I was in graduate school. After all of science is really just a set of theories that approach fact, but never quite get there. However, most scientists only preach about thinking critically until their favorite theory is questioned and then they turn militant in protecting their intellectual constructions. I can understand people who believe in the creation feeling threatened by evolution because it attacks their faith. I don't quite see why the evolution zealots are so up in arms about people who want to maintain faith in a creation. Is it because science is the only faith they have? I think a big part of the problem is that most scientists are so vain that they cannot stand to have their wisdom placed below a God whom they cannot comprehend. Are we building ourselves a scientific tower of Babel?