Thread by @NeedhiBhalla

Love this idea of @big_data_kane using his talk @ucsc @ucscgenomics to illuminate the ontogeny of his ideas and the evolution of his thinking to the learners in the audience: "I move as I am inspired."

This talk is both a discussion of the science in his lab and its foundation in personal history and interests: What effect does environment have on scientific processes? How does context affect protein evolution, viral transmissibility and who GETS TO DO science?

Advice for young scholars: Be a historian of your own field. Studying the past can inform how you think about and do science now. It also lets you find people and ideas that you identify with.

Highlights his discovery of John Maynard Smith and this paper: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5411867/

In 2020, he wrote an appreciation of this paper: "I propose that the Protein Space analogy is not only important because of its scientific richness, but also because of what it can teach us about the art of constructing useful and subversive analogies."
genetics.org/content/214/4/…

ends his talk with what is the role of scientists in society? He writes for Wired and Scientific American to make connections between things that may not seem connected but are. Asks: "Why do I do this work? Doesn't it distract from my 'real' work? NO"

paraphrased advice: "Read all the time. Read carefully. There are lots of things you don't have control over but you can have control over your knowledge. This is one of the ways you can make yourself feel more comfortable in the field."

Question from audience: What if papers are a little over your head? "You just need to know a paper *well enough* to be able to talk to someone about it."

Sorry had to leave during the questions!