Shitty values in science
in Op-ed / Science on Op-ed, Science
Shitty values are tangible external goals largely outside your control. Chasing these goals will causes a lot of anxiety and leave you empty even when you accomplish them, as they do not solve real world problem.
Life is full of shitty values, or metrics, such as likes and retweets. Academia is not spared of these metrics, from the ubiquitous h-index, Rg-scores over loop profiles to mind numbing Publons.
All these values, when observed more closely, are largely outside your control and can’t be seen as a true metric for your academic success. For example, they do not take into account your priviledged background, or lack thereof.
If you want to be a happy scientist make tangible contributions in projects you control and evaluate yourself. Examples of those are open source code and data, contributions to academic societies, and in general community based work.