Science is not a family-friendly career

There is a brief article in this week's Nature entitled "Tenure or family?"

Marriage and childbirth are what stop most female US graduate students from becoming tenured researchers, according to a report by Washington DC think tank the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Staying Competitive: Patching America's Leaky Pipeline in the Sciences found that married mothers with a PhD are 35% less likely to enter a tenure-track position in the sciences than married fathers with PhDs, according to a National Science Foundation survey. And they are 27% less likely than their male counterparts to get tenure after securing a tenure-track post. The report advises universities and funding agencies to create family-friendly policies, including six weeks of paid maternity leave and a week of paid parental leave.

Obviously there is an enormous problem in career progression for women in science. A 35% reduction at the tenure-track stage and a 27% further reduction at the tenure stage - women get whittled out of the academic career pathway. This article kind of misses the point though. Marriage and children are not what stops women progressing in science. Extra maternity leave is not going to help if it puts women further behind the publication scramble. To put it bluntly, in my opinion this is the real problem:

1. A career in science is horribly unfriendly to a balanced life. There is no security or safety, every step of the way 90% of people are going to jump or be pushed. Everyone is smart at the top, that isn't enough, you also have to be lucky and obsessively determined. Most tenure-track professors don't even take weekends or holidays - they can't afford to be left behind.

2. Society still has structural sexism built in. Yes, women are now free to pursue any career they want, in addition to their previous workload. If it was purely child-rearing that was a problem the blockade would be in all scientists who have children. Instead the burden falls disproportionally on women scientists who have children, because on average they still end up doing more of the work than men. Consider the recommendations of the report: six weeks of paid maternity leave and a week of paid parental leave. Even if the recommendation is passed, women will be expected to do six times more child-rearing work than men.

These problems are much harder than simply paid parental leave, although obviously that would be a positive contribution. Instead we need to tackle the two fundamental issues. The science career needs to be made more family friendly, or at least not a horrific all-consuming ordeal. We can't continue with the same massive bottle-necks in careers or with a system where every person works themselves to death to stay in the game one more round. Competitive peer review has grown into a destructive monster that chews people up and spits them out. Secondly men need to pull their own weight rather than expecting women to sacrifice their time to make up for a thoughtless spouse.

A time-line for diabetes research

6th century BCE – The first known diagnosis of diabetes was made in India. Doctors called the condition medhumeha, meaning "sweet urine disease", and tested for it by seeing whether ants were attracted to the sweetness of the urine.

1st century CE – Diabetes was diagnosed by the ancient Greeks. Aretaeus of Cappadocia named the condition διαβήτης (diabētēs), meaning "one that straddles", referring to the copious production of urine. It was later called diabetes mellitus, "copious production of honey urine", again referring to the sweetness of the urine. Unlike the Indian doctors, Greek doctors tested this directly by drinking a urine sample. At the time a diagnosis of diabetes was a death sentence: "life (with diabetes) is short, disgusting and painful" (Aretaeus of Cappadocia).

It is probably that the ancient Egyptians and early Chinese cultures also independently discovered diabetes.

10th century CE - Avicenna of Persia provided the first detailed description of diabetes (diagnosed through "abnormal appetite and the collapse of sexual functions" as well as the "sweet taste of diabetic urine"). He also provided the first (partially) effective treatment, using a mixture of lupine, trigonella and zedoary seed.

1889 – Joseph von Mering and Oskar Minkowski in Germany developed the first animal model of diabetes using dogs, discovering the role of the pancreas.

1921 - Federick Banting and Charles Best in Canada first cured canine diabetes by purification and injection of canine insulin.

1922 - For the first time diabetes stopped being a death sentence. In 1922 Federick Banting and Charles Best treated the first human patient with bovine insulin. Notably they decided to make their patent available globally without charge.

1922-1980 - Treatment of patients with animal insulin or human insulin extracted from cadavers. Substantial life extension but also significant side-effects.

1955 - Determination of the protein sequence of insulin by Federick Sanger in the United Kingdom.

1980 - First commercial production of recombinant human insulin, by Genentech.

Today there is no cure for diabetes, but when treated it only results in an average loss of 10 years (the same as smoking).

Polling on science in America

Interesting figures released by Pew on the opinion of the American public on science and scientists.

Effect of science on society

Mostly positive	84%
Mostly negative	6%

Contribute "a lot" to society's well-being

Military	84%
Scientists	70%
Clergy	40%
Journalists	38%
Business executives	21%

US scientific achievements are the best in the world

American public agreement	17%
American scientists agreement	49%

Major problems for science, as identified by scientists:

The public does not know very much about science	85%
Public expects solutions to problems too quickly	49%
New media oversimplify scientific findings	48%
Lack of funding for basic research	46%

Differences of opinion between scientists and the public*:

Agreement with theory of evolution	87% vs 32%
Agreement with theory of climate change	84% vs 49%
Support for use of animals in research	93% vs 52%
Support for compulsory vaccination of children	82% vs 69%
Support for embryonic stem cell research	93% vs 58%

* Presumably these would be even more striking if broken down by scientific discipline.

Scientific training changes ideology

	US Public	US scientists
Liberal	20%	52%
Moderate	38%	35%
Conservative	37%	9%