Fascination of Science, page 34
Would you say there is more professional jealousy in the world of science than in other fields of study?
It totally depends on the degree of one's personal narcissism. In my experience as a student, I found that the professors who were more pompous were also those who usually had less to give. Narcissism comes along naturally in the world of science, because a researcher has to make people aware why that work is important. And for that kind of promotion, you need a certain level of extroversion. So, there is definitely a public dimension to science that may boost one's intrinsic narcissistic feelings.
In the world of science, one's reputation is currency. What is your h-index, by the way?
On Google Scholar it is 94, on Scopus it is 70. But I don't see a direct relationship between the h-index and the relevance of one's discovery. Much depends on the journal where you publish or on the institution from which you submit it. So, if you submit the paper from Harvard, people will view you differently than if you submit it from Chemnitz or Parma. I recognize that we should rate what people have done, mainly because we all live on public money. But science has become a sort of contest, about who has the longest h-index. On my team, there are only women, and I find this inspiring, as it helps dilute the alpha male fantasy about the h-index.
What mindset should a scientist have?
Enthusiasm, great curiosity, and the desire to work a lot. You mustn't be afraid to cross boundaries. Never take anything for granted. These are the key elements that I encourage in my students. And as a group leader, it is necessary that I create the best possible working conditions, under which all these qualities can freely grow. They should also be able to take a risk, but this is getting more and more difficult. Nowadays you have to promise to make pigs fly to get funding. There is a growing pressure to be immediately successful and to also guarantee a prompt technological application of your results. But if you take a risk, the stakes are high; you might be unsuccessful and spend one or two years on a project that doesn't produce the expected result. This can be bad for your career.
How do you bear up under this pressure?
I smoke a lot. That is my way to cope with anxiety. In the background, there is a constant uncertainty as to whether we will receive sufficient funding to continue our work or whether we will be able to publish our results in the really important scientific journals. And there is always the risk that someone will refute our discovery just a few years later, saying “Mirror neurons, that's bullshit.” You must live with it. There is nothing you can do about that.
How good is your work-life balance?
I am probably too extreme. Like most of the team members at the time of our discovery of mirror neurons, I wasn't paid by the university. Therefore, I had to work as a doctor on weekends and at night in prison just to earn a living. I worked around the clock for five years. I really wanted it. Only in 1992, after our discovery of the mirror neurons, did we received subsidies, and then I got a fellowship to do research in Tokyo for two years. That helped me a lot. I could prove myself in this completely alien work environment, and I was finally convinced that I was a good neuroscientist. I had never been totally sure before.
In Parma, it was more the stick than the carrot that ruled. So, you were always pushed to show how smart you were, starting from the assumption that people weren't necessarily smart. That was a terrible pedagogical approach.
How else has this important discovery changed your life?
To be honest, the major event that changed my life was becoming a father. If I'd known what incredible happiness it is to be a father, I wouldn't have started at the age of 45, and I would have three or four children instead of two. Apparently, I made a statement my wife keeps reminding me of: “Children are not compatible with our work.” That was really silly of me, but as a young man I was probably convinced of that belief. Sometimes I regret this.
But without your constant hard work, would you have been able to make this discovery?
I don't think so. We scientists tend to be obsessed with our work. Even when we are not working, almost everything else brings up an idea that connects to our experiments. We always wear the lab coat, so to speak. And after the discovery of mirror neurons, I expanded my range to social dimensional cognition. That was a major shift in my career and I had to delve deeper into philosophy, psychopathology, aesthetics, and later film theory. And that put a lot of extra work time on my daily schedule.
Normally I go to sleep at 1 a.m. and I wake up at 6:30 a.m. So, I basically sleep five hours. When everything is quiet at home late at night, I can spend time listening to music or reading something related to work while listening to music. Or, when the kids are away for a couple of hours, I will sit on the couch and watch an old La Traviata from La Scala, which makes we weep. It is beautiful to be moved by music and art. If you are emotional, you are richer. Actually, I am scared by people who are unemotional.
Did you love music as a child?
My parents were good at stimulating my interest in art, and my father was fond of music, so he boosted my interest in music, as well as art. So, the first time I attended a symphonic concert I was 7 or 8 years old. The overture of Die Meistersinger by Richard Wagner was an illumination for me. Both my parents were very loving, and we had a strong physical relationship. My mother in particular kissed me a lot and always told me how much she loved me. Today, I do the same with my kids.
I think physical contact is immensely important. For me, it was crucial as a child to experience so much closeness and love. And they never pushed me to do anything. My mother would have preferred that I become a rich psychiatrist rather than a poor neuroscientist; she told me many times. But besides that, they were always supportive. Until the age of 9, I was a very happy child. Then my mother became severely depressed and went through hell. That was pretty hard for everyone in the family.
Do you think that at some point all emotions can be scientifically explained?
In my opinion, the idea that neuroscience alone can do this is completely wrong. I think cognitive neuroscience is necessary, but it's not enough to learn more about who we are. And I embrace a model of science that has no truth with a capital T, only temporary truths that can be falsified with new evidence and new hypotheses. Science mustn't become an unquestioned religion; our only dogma has to be “Stick to the facts!”
“With a little luck, I reach a rapturous state of mind.”
Onur Güntürkün | Psychology
Professor of Biopsychology at the Ruhr University Bochum
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 2013
Germany
Professor Güntürkün, you research the neural basis of cognition. What's your ideal state of mind and how do you reach it?
I can't summon it at the touch of a button, but it's often there. It's wonderful when the dark clouds lift and I can see clearly, and I understand. I zoom in on the small field of analysis and block out everything else. With a little luck, I reach a rapturous state of mind. This can go on for many, many hours, until I'm tired. Sometimes I search for a solution for days and weeks on end, then it ambushes me in the middle of a conversation. Or I wake up the next morning and it's there. It's hard to predict.
You have conducted research on humans, dolphins, and penguins, but you now mainly work with pigeons. What are you researching?
I'm researching how thoughts are formed in the brain. For a long time, scientists assumed that only brains similar to our own were capable of complex thinking. That is, we assumed that the shape, organization, and wiring of the human or ape brain provided the only conceivable basis for higher intellectual faculties. However, the discoveries of the last two decades show that birds such as crows are capable of the same cognitive performance as chimpanzees. However, crows and all other birds, like pigeons, have brains that are organized radically differently from humans or apes, and are considerably smaller. This proves that idea wrong. Apparently, complex thought processes can also be generated in brains that are smaller and organized in a radically different way.
I'm studying pigeons to understand how thinking occurs in both bird and mammalian brains. My belief is that it doesn't really matter what the exact anatomy of a brain looks like. Far more important are the precise wiring principles of groups of neurons. The brains in which such groups of nerve cells are located may look different, but they still generate the same thought processes. This new scientific perspective will help us realize that many animals we previously thought were living robots instead have complex mental inner lives.
What has been your happiest moment in your research?
For my PhD thesis, I manipulated the hemispheres of pigeon brains, but the data didn't make any sense. When a Belgian colleague returned from a conference in Russia, he told me about an Australian who had discovered differences between the left and right brain hemispheres of chicks. Then the scales fell from my eyes, I reorganized my data according to the left and right brain hemispheres and I then had a crystal-clear picture. I'll never forget that moment.
You also discovered that women may think like men during menstruation. Why is that?
Human cerebral hemispheres are organized asymmetrically; language is mostly on the left, and spatial orientation is mostly on the right. These brain asymmetries are statistically less pronounced in women, and they can be modified by hormones. This affects cognitive processes. In mental rotation—a spatial reasoning test—men perform significantly better than women. But during menstruation, the female brain asymmetries more closely resemble those of men. During this phase, women perform as well as men on the mental rotation test. So, the differences in brain organization and cognition depend partly on when you test women. That's a fascinating discovery. Now, if you ask me if I fully understood why this is, I'd have to say no, at least not fully.
You were born in Turkey, contracted polio, and came to live with your uncle in Germany. While you were in the hospital, you were isolated from your parents. How did that shape you?
Actually, I should have been severely traumatized by all that. Back then, as a 6-year-old, I was confronted with an environment in which no one spoke a word of Turkish and, of course, I didn't speak a word of German. I have no memory of those first weeks and months. Extreme childhood trauma can lead to memory loss, and for a long time I assumed the same for me too, until I met the nurse who cared for me and others at the time.
Many of these nurses were not married, so we were their children. They had breakfast with us in the morning and only left in the evening to go back to their dormitory. From what I can reconstruct, it was a pleasant environment from the child's point of view—a kind of family situation. That helps me understand why no psychological scars remain; after being in the hospital for eight months, I spoke only German and my parents could barely communicate with me. But a buried language can be unearthed relatively quickly.
Polio brought you to the brink of death. Do you still remember that?
When I came out of the ventilator—the iron lung—my mother put her ear to my mouth. I spoke as loud as I could, but only a whisper came out. The doctors thought I would die soon and probably asked my parents if they should shorten my suffering. I didn't find out about that until much later. My mother said no, and that was the end of the matter. Since then, I always say “Never give up on anyone!”
You returned to Turkey in a wheelchair, still a youngster. What was that like?
There are a lot of physical barriers, but puberty is a time when you don't need your parents as much. My mother wasn't overly protective, and I was able to spend whole days without their help because my classmates took turns (in pairs, in alphabetical order) to look after me in class. My teacher at the high school organized it. In fact, you just couldn't be shy. I developed character traits then that are very helpful for me now; I'm almost pathologically optimistic.
“I have acquired more scars in the struggle for survival in academic life than in being in a wheelchair.”
How was growing up and dating girls?
That was a difficult time. In Turkey, I went to an all-boys high school, so I didn't meet many girls; to a certain extent, my classmates also had to put up with this deficit—it was a shared suffering. But then at university in Germany, I couldn't socialize well, like going with them to a discotheque. But of course, there are many ways to love. I met my wife at a party when I was 19, years old and we're still in love. Sometime after we got to know each other, she decided we should get married so I wouldn't be deported. At least that was her official reason for starting that conversation. I found this very romantic and immediately accepted.
What further difficulties have you faced as a person with a disability?
I have acquired more scars in the struggle for survival in academic life than in being in a wheelchair. I'm used to life as a wheelchair user; it's part of who I am. The most important thing in science is to be enthusiastic and excited about your work. It's not a normal profession; you depend on being noticed and getting your work cited. You have a lot of setbacks. Sometimes you produce a result that you've worked years for, that you believe in, that's part of you, and then anonymous colleagues scour it and write a scathing verdict. Then you're left feeling completely exposed, thinking “Good grief!” You just have to deal with these things.
Was the path to an academic life particularly difficult for you?
Yes, of course, because I had fewer available options to get jobs where I was able to work at all. I can't spend three months in a semi-desert, wearing binoculars and working on an exciting topic, making observations about bizarre animals. Nevertheless, I tried to get the best out of it and not make compromises. After all, science is worthwhile only if you work on things you're passionate about.
Did you want to become a scientist when you were a child?
I've never done anything else, but now I do the science more professionally and with more resources. When I was in elementary school, I once found a decomposing sparrow that had probably fallen out of its nest. I dreamed it was an Archaeopteryx and became obsessed with dissecting that little corpse. I collected weevils, locked them in old cassette boxes, built mazes, and rewarded the weevils when they found the exit. I conditioned fish in an aquarium to find out if they saw colors. So that I could afford a microscope, I made a deal with my mother: every time I dried the dishes, I would get ten cents. I'm sure that it meant more, not less, work for her, but my Neckermann student microscope was my greatest treasure.
But science turned into a profession only because of my professor at the time, Juan Delius. I studied psychology because I wanted to research the brain, but in my studies I constantly questioned what one thing had to do with another. It was brainless psychology back then, and I seriously considered quitting. Delius, on the other hand, did exactly the experiments that fascinated me. That's what I wanted to do—nothing else. He saved my academic life by giving me that opportunity.
What are you like as a university teacher?
I try to be like my old high school math teacher in Turkey; if I'm a good professor today, it's thanks to that school. The math teacher was on fire for his students, but he would never have given away even half a point. I thought that was great. I learned how to work properly from him. Every minute spent on the toilet, every minute spent daydreaming—we were supposed to write down the amount and deduct it from our work time at the end. On some high school days, with all the minus minutes, I totaled only eight hours of work, even though I felt like I had been working day and night. Over time, I improved, and my record was fourteen hours and twenty-five minutes of net work time. I don't think I've ever worked that much again in my life.
“It's not a normal profession; you depend on being noticed and getting your work cited.”
How do you balance your research with your private life?
It's not easy. I'm fortunate to be married to a woman who likes to go to bed early and get up early. I, on the other hand, am someone who likes to go to bed late and get up late. Our compromise is that we go to bed at my time, which means never before midnight, but wake up at her time, which means quarter past six. As a result, we both sleep too little; for about forty years, we've been telling ourselves that this has to change. Also, I can work a lot and work fast, and I can make decisions. And I'm lucky that I can completely rely on the people who organize my professorship.
There are few women in science who have made it to the top. What's your experience been like with female scientists?
I have more women than men on the team because they're great scientists. Psychology is a women's subject—almost 80 percent of the students are women. But usually when things get experimental and technical, more men show up. You can see that in my group.
A scientific career is also a high-risk undertaking. On average, men are more willing to take these and similar risks. Moreover, it's difficult to combine a scientific career with having a family, which is the hardest time. Many women may assume it will be difficult to convince a man to be the main caregiver looking after the children and the household for this phase. Perhaps men are less willing to do that. If they have doubts, women may prefer to look after their child for the first few years. But I'm pleased to see that these differences between men and women are getting smaller.
