I appreciate your saying that. You are right, we are looking for a big change. I feel like we have to start somewhere though, and sometimes big changes happen as the result of a little change instituted by someone who just wouldn’t take no for an answer.

As for career advancement and the things that get one there. I guess there are the traditional metrics for this in science (ie. papers and grants), and sometimes that is all people see. I do know that every time I’ve done some activity like this that didn’t seem to have a clear benefit to my scientific career up front- there turned out to be some twist or benefit that I never could have predicted in advance.

Just wanted to add a postscript–I do think what you’re doing is valuable, open discussion of scientific results is very important, and it’s something that’s disappeared from the culture over the last twenty years. Science is worse off because of this.

I’m just skeptical that this can be restored without sweeping changes to the culture, particularly changes to the way funding and careers impact a researcher’s behavior. Sadly, things seem to be going in the opposite direction, as pressures are increasing, rather than decreasing, and activities that are good for science but not necessarily career-advancing are becoming even less of an option. I’d love to see you succeed, I’m just not sure how to pull something like this off.

Because a whole bunch of people we don’t know rated it highest.