I enjoyed this thoroughly, thank you for writing it.
At the end of the day, this is a matter of operationalizing terms and semantics.
"Who is a Gibblygook? Well, a person can be called a Gibblygook when they have executed the following task and received the following papers..."
It doesn't matter what the "thing" is, at its core we're concerned with descriptive phrases here. The distinction between "Biologist" and "Doing Biology" is material. Anyone can do biology, but not everyone doing biology can be a biologist. Fixing a drain in my house does not make me a professional plumber. That's not gatekeeping; credentials are a legitimate thing, we recognize them in every aspect of modern life. Acquire credentials, receive descriptive title.
The real question is, who gets to establish and maintain the criteria for the credentials? Academia has granted itself that role in the sciences. Is that proper? I don't know.
As a professional orchardist and cider maker, I very certainly "do more biology" on a day to day basis than the vast majority of professional, accredited, academic "Biologists". But I'm not going to call myself a "Biologist", because I haven't acquired the markers of that personal description.
I think professionalism has a major role to play here, as in the plumbing example. Installing a washing machine in my home does not make me a washing machine installer, it makes me a guy who installed a washing machine. Staunching a wound on my son's leg doesn't make me a doctor, even though I am technically "doing medicine". There's a difference, and that difference is credentials and professionalism. I don't think its fair to call that "gatekeeping", which has negative, exclusionary connotations.
Separating credentialed professionals from enthusiastic amateurs is perfectly legitimate in every other domain of modern life, why should the sciences be different?
Thank you for writing this piece and for sharing a very vulnerable reflection. As a former student of this institution and someone who was lucky enough to learn from someone like you, I could not agree more. As educators we underestimate the power we have in the fences that we help institutions of power uphold or even construct. We forget that when we fail to change our mindset we become perpetuators of the same thing we aim to protect students from.
Ugh! This reminds me of a conversation I had as a junior PI about how “it’s not science if it’s not published.” (See https://unprofessoring.substack.com/p/are-we-outsourcing-our-identities). Letting universities and corporations decide who is a biologist and who is a scientist is exactly what you say—gatekeeping.
I enjoyed this thoroughly, thank you for writing it.
At the end of the day, this is a matter of operationalizing terms and semantics.
"Who is a Gibblygook? Well, a person can be called a Gibblygook when they have executed the following task and received the following papers..."
It doesn't matter what the "thing" is, at its core we're concerned with descriptive phrases here. The distinction between "Biologist" and "Doing Biology" is material. Anyone can do biology, but not everyone doing biology can be a biologist. Fixing a drain in my house does not make me a professional plumber. That's not gatekeeping; credentials are a legitimate thing, we recognize them in every aspect of modern life. Acquire credentials, receive descriptive title.
The real question is, who gets to establish and maintain the criteria for the credentials? Academia has granted itself that role in the sciences. Is that proper? I don't know.
As a professional orchardist and cider maker, I very certainly "do more biology" on a day to day basis than the vast majority of professional, accredited, academic "Biologists". But I'm not going to call myself a "Biologist", because I haven't acquired the markers of that personal description.
I think professionalism has a major role to play here, as in the plumbing example. Installing a washing machine in my home does not make me a washing machine installer, it makes me a guy who installed a washing machine. Staunching a wound on my son's leg doesn't make me a doctor, even though I am technically "doing medicine". There's a difference, and that difference is credentials and professionalism. I don't think its fair to call that "gatekeeping", which has negative, exclusionary connotations.
Separating credentialed professionals from enthusiastic amateurs is perfectly legitimate in every other domain of modern life, why should the sciences be different?
Thank you for writing this piece and for sharing a very vulnerable reflection. As a former student of this institution and someone who was lucky enough to learn from someone like you, I could not agree more. As educators we underestimate the power we have in the fences that we help institutions of power uphold or even construct. We forget that when we fail to change our mindset we become perpetuators of the same thing we aim to protect students from.
Angela Google (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=co3yVecAAAAJ&hl=en) has some great work on science identity especially related to the idea of what it means to be a "science person" versus a "scientist"
Ugh! This reminds me of a conversation I had as a junior PI about how “it’s not science if it’s not published.” (See https://unprofessoring.substack.com/p/are-we-outsourcing-our-identities). Letting universities and corporations decide who is a biologist and who is a scientist is exactly what you say—gatekeeping.