Self-Confidence and Science...

It seems a lot of female scientists actively involved in the blogosphere have been talking about or experiencing low confidence lately and I got to thinking that it seems like high confidence is a requirement in a science career. It seems. But is it, really? Do most scientists have high levels of confidence? Did they have high confidence in their undergraduate years? Graduate years?

I've suffered from a lack of confidence for a long time and have always wondered if I'm fit for a career in science. In fact, what initially steered me away from the sciences was a lack of confidence; I just couldn't imagine that I'd pass all those chemistry and biology courses. It was only after working for a few years in a repetitive, unchallenging job that I decided it'd be worth the possible failure to do something I love. And so here I am...and so far so good.

I have confidence in my intelligence. I also now have confidence in myself as a science student. But being a good student and being intelligent don't guarantee success as a scientist. What about innovation and creativity? Science isn't just about learning things that have already been studied. It's also about coming up with new ideas and putting them to test. I don't have much confidence that I'm an ideas person. Like my art, I can copy something very well, but translating from my head to paper just doesn't seem to work. What if, as a scientist, I can't come up with new ideas?

I hope that as one progresses through undergrad and grad school, that things seem less impossible. I can't imagine coming up with a novel idea at this point, but then again, I don't have a large knowledge base to work off of. Perhaps when I'm more familiar with, say, biology and its language, I'll be able to form hypotheses around evolution. Until then, the best I can do is study what's already been learned.

How did you get through your graduate and undergraduate educations? Did you have your doubts? Did you feel like research was the unobtainable Holy Grail and that the ivory tower was on mars?

Nigersaurus...and a question...

*Credit: Photo © Gabrielle Lyon, courtesy Project Exploration

Science has always been my passion. As a young kid I would capture and observe small animals from the stream in our back yard. Lightning, tornadoes and other natural phenomena fascinated me; I put pictures of extreme weather on my walls and tried, with no luck, to go on a tornado chase for my fifteenth birthday. I told my parents, all throughout my childhood, that I wanted to be a paleontologist.

So I often wonder why I majored in writing and not in a science. And the answer is actually very simple: I was scared. Science is intimidating. It's an arena where everyone is trying to prove you wrong. It's not static. It's dominated by some of the most brilliant minds. It's a field that requires a certain kind of thinking.

I was afraid of science. I was afraid of being proven wrong, of asking the wrong questions. And sometimes I still am. So I have a question. One that may have a painfully obvious answer to some of you. I've been afraid to ask it, but I also want to be a good scientist, and I figure asking questions is the best way to become a good scientist. So here goes...

Nigersaurus had a very pneumatic vertebrae, which made the skeleton quite light (relatively). But Nigersaurus was also very small (also relatively!). So the question (not mine) is, "Why did a small sauropod need a light skeleton?"

My question is, could it be a form of protection? If Nigersaurus was small compared to most sauropods, and most sauropods got their protection from their size alone, would a lighter skeleton allow for a faster sauropod? One that would not have a size advantage?

And that leads me to more questions, as follows:

• In general, are lighter-boned animals faster than animals with dense bones?
• Is bone density related to muscle size? I'm assuming that small bones have small muscle attachment sites and than light bones can only handle a certain amount of stress caused by muscle contraction.
• Would a small sauropod be fast enough to outrun a carnivorous therapod?
• If not faster, what sort of adaptations would a small sauropod have for defense?

I also wonder, could the light skeleton mean that Nigersaurus was a slender animal? Perhaps it was not as robust as other sauropods, especially given its feeding habits and did not need an especially strong frame to carry its weight.

Anyway, I hope that doing this will help me get over my fear of asking questions and maybe stimulate some good conversation. I'm always afraid to ask questions like this, but really, what do I have to lose?

Reference

Sereno, P. C., Wilson, J. A., Witmer, L. M., Whitlock, J. A., Maga, A., Ide, O. & Rowe, T. A. (2007). Structural extremes in a Cretaceous dinosaur. PLoS One (11): published online.