Sunday, December 6, 2015

"The Cutting Edge" with Jack Baldwin



Fascinating little documentary about Jack Baldwin and colleagues, thanks to Peter Kenny. Professor Baldwin is quite outspoken. (Part 1 of 3 is linked above; it will show parts 2 and 3 automatically.)  I don't know the first thing about UK academic chemistry; I presume there's some cultural aspects I don't quite understand here.

14 comments:

  1. "I can assure you all the good chemists I know has a good competitive instinct..." Jack Baldwin

    Thought provoking comment. Although this does push what we know further and further, in a highly competitive environment it could lead to fraud in the competitive individual without ethics.

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    1. Yeah, no kidding. But hey, if you already made it as professor with Baldwin's letter of recommendation, it's not like they can kick you out right?

      blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2015/06/22/a_retraction_ten_years_later

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    2. Well, if there is a silver lining to this issue, the hypothetical cheater is presumably living in Belfast. Wonder what side of the wall he is on?

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    3. Well, if there is a God, then I suppose they made a section for the "Eastern Orthodox guest resident" and put that small enclosed space right in the middle.

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  2. I love this documentary so much. I'd say it's not just cultural: there's a lot none of us can possibly understand here. :')

    "Intellectual thug".

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  3. The best thing is Robert Maxwell turning up at a Tetrahedron board meeting!

    Background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell

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  4. 1988. And profs are still complaining about facilities and not enough cash nearly 30 years later.

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  5. Baldwin's (tyrannical) RuleDecember 7, 2015 at 10:27 AM

    Ah yes, the Jack Baldwin who abandoned all his graduate students from Penn State when their work got him the call from MIT...real class act

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  6. ...looks like next Bond villain and that would be lot of fun!

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  7. There's an amazing lack of PPE in the lab in part one.

    I found Waldo at 3:52.

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  8. Baldwin's pick-up line in a bar: "...I have no hair - anywhere!"

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    1. It's pretty obvious that it was actually: "The bald always win with the ladies".

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  9. This is a great line:
    Baldwin: "...it seems to indicate there are a lot more jobs than there are chemists!"
    Davies: "One of the problems is that a lot of British chemists who have finished their doctorate no longer stay on for post docs, either here or abroad, simply because they're being grabbed by industry so rapidly."

    It's also great to see Davies has managed to maintain that hair and lamb-chop sideburn combo for 30 years or more.

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    1. http://research.chem.ox.ac.uk/Data/Sites/31/photos/sgd-picturecrop.jpg

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20