That's right, rather than taking his words at face value, I investigated the facts that he omitted from his narrative. They tell a slightly different story.
None of that means that I don't share his opinions about the state of academic science.
Those "facts" are provided by the narrator himself. Unless you have some kind of psychic bond with the narrator, or can argue a priori why the phenomenon of "unreliable narrator" simply does not apply here, then these facts don't really address w1ntermute's line of argument.
That's not factual evidence, that's a subjective narrative that he's constructed, one which the factual evidence contradicts. The one who actually isn't listening in this situation is you, because I've also had to state this twice.
> Feelings are not subjective narratives; especially if you're a neuroscientist. They are physiological, measurable, and observable.
Ah yes, because his post consisted of statistically rigorous measurements of his mental state to back up his statements, rather than a polemic against the nature of the academic system. Now, in which figure in his post did you see a plot of those measurements of his feelings, again? I'm having a little difficulty locating it.
> When the author says he felt discouraged after success, that is a report on an empirical phenomenon. Do you believe he is lying?
He does not have significant academic success to speak of, so his statement doesn't make logical sense. That's all I'm saying. Resorting to strawmen like claiming I believe he's lying or that I don't trust him detracts from the credibility of your argument.
Interesting how "bitter" is important. Is it academia's codeword for unprofessionalism? A claim that someone lacks objectivity because their meatbody generated emotion along with reason?
(Was Newton any less of a scientist for often being "bitter"?)
Perhaps I may bring some enlightenment here, I'm JF, the guy who wrote the article, and I do have psychic access to my own mind.
Everything is true in what both of you are saying. The original claim that my postdoc was ending anyway is true. But I did not fail to get enough publications to continue. I would have had opportunities to be employed and finish many more papers (in fact I was begged to choose to do so), but refused.
The fact that I have decided to synchronize my leave of academia with the ending of my postdoc, however, does not change what I express on my Facebook post, which was genuine. I am not bitter and I do not consider myself an unsuccessful scientist at all. In my country and in many universities, I see people being hired at a professor position with a C.V. much less populated than mine; so the option was certainly not out. On top of it, if I hadn't had the intent to leave, I certainly could have used my data in the last year to get anywhere from 1 to 4 more publications. I have handed all my data to students in the lab and chose to refuse to continue working on it despite a request from my PI (I actually made a joke and said that I could continue academia if he paid me $50,000 per month).
None of you are wrong; one just has to be careful with interpretations. Thanks for the person who defended the actual reading of my text rather than presumptuous extrapolations.
That's right, rather than taking his words at face value, I investigated the facts that he omitted from his narrative. They tell a slightly different story.
None of that means that I don't share his opinions about the state of academic science.