Survivor bias in academia
Why it's good to be careful about giving and receiving advice
Recently I attended a seminar where someone talked about how they overcame adversity in their academic career, proceeding to dispensing advice to young scientists. Even though this was a very inspiring talk, and the advice given came from the heart, and was given in the best of intentions, I had an uneasy feeling that something was a bit off, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it; until a lunch discussion with two friends, where it came out quite clearly: survivor bias was at work here. The person giving the talk had succeeded against all odds and was now in a position to share what helped them along their path. But that may not necessarily be helpful to others.
Since I gave a seminar later the same day on applying and interviewing for faculty positions, and with that lunch time discussion fresh in my mind, I was careful to start with a statement on survivor bias (even though in that case my impression was created by observing what worked and what didn’t with a larger cohort of people, not primarily my own experience). I think that’s important.
As we become more senior in our careers, we are often asked for advice. I run a whole YouTube channel with over 200 videos on that topic, with the best of intentions: basically to give back to the community, since I feel I have been very lucky in my career and I feel others could profit from the experience. I do some of this also in this newsletter you’re reading. I hope I have always made clear that the things I talk about reflect my own experience, and it may not work for others.
I will definitely think about this more going forward. While I believe it is good to hear advice from others, two things are important: as the recipient of advice, realize that this is one path that led to success for someone in a particular setting; it may not work for you, and it may not apply in your case. And for you as the person sharing their experience: be aware that there are probably aspects at work that are quite specific to your own situation: the time when you started your career, your field, your background, the mentorship you experienced, your personality, your talent and just a whole lot of other parameters (including luck). Treat it as a case study, not as absolute advice. As one option to consider. I hope I will remember this myself. :)
Please let me know your thoughts on this in the comments!
Hiya,
Lovely post.
I always appreciate when senior academics acknowlege the luck and privilege element!
A bit separate, but I also think it's important to encourage ECRs to think more about if they actually want to be in academia as a first step to this process, and as something they should be reasking themselves throughout their career. Perhaps it might seem a bit silly to be saying this at the start of a of 'how to survive academia' career talk, but I feel that there is such a strong sense of 'succeeding and failing' when it comes to academia, that it can be quite easy to think that leaving means you didn't make it.... and that can perhaps make it harder for people to reassess if they are staying for the 'right reasons'.
I say this, perhaps obviously, as someone who is no longer in academia, but also as someone who- when they left- had multiple high level people come to me and state or even argue with me that because they believed that I *could* be a successful academic, that meant that I should stay.
Work is an important part of life, but even if it were the only important part of life (clearly not the case), it's very hard to know how talented you might be at other things, or how much they might make you happy, when you have only ever tried academia.
This is so important to think about, I believe! On the one hand, getting advice from more senior scientists is crucial because many of the "rules" for making it in academia aren’t written down and have to be learned from others. First-generation students really have a disadvantage partly because of that. So, thank you for giving advice to young scientists!
But survivorship bias is definitely an issue. As a junior researcher I often heard advice like "Just follow your dreams!", "Do what you’re interested in, no matter what others say!", and "Don’t compare yourself to others!". Yes, I believe the people giving this advice were genuine and it worked for them. But maybe it worked for them because they are brilliant and had great ideas, or because they were lucky and made an amazing discovery. It’s very naive to think that every young scientist following this kind of advice will “make it” in academia. Giving that kind of advice somehow (inadvertently) minimises the struggles that many have to go through to be successful.
I'm a senior scientist now and plan to leave academia sooner or later, but I've just watched some of your videos out of curiosity. I really like your nuanced approach to giving advice.