Comment by Zaylan 3 days ago
Really impressive that a student managed to find something Hofmann suspected nearly a century ago. Makes you wonder how many of these hidden chemists are still quietly working in symbiosis with plants, carrying out complex metabolic processes we haven’t noticed yet.
It also makes me think about how much untapped potential might be hiding in the ordinary plants we pass by every day.
Perhaps, but that was not how it was worded. Like I said, I’m genuinely asking. If the original author wants to say “oh, I don’t think the student part is relay relevant”, then it’s all good. Otherwise it’s still all good but I want to understand their choice of mentioning the student.
wasn't found for so long and finally was
Now I'm not saying that a student shouldn't be able to find it. But in conventional wisdom it seems quite clear why one sounds more impressive than the other if you ask me.
A student is still learning. Not at the peak of knowledge/ability. While an "expert" or in the context of academia, a professor, would seem more knowledgeable. In that context, the wording seems expected / understandable.
Of course in reality in some real life contexts a professor might be more "stagnant" than a student that's trying to get a big discovery in order to earn a doctorate/professorship or course. But that's not "conventional wisdom" for the masses.
> (…) sounds more impressive (…) sounds more impressive (…)
You keep saying that, but my question was why they considered it to be more impressive. I understand an article might want anything to sound more impressive for clicks.
> If this is the case, isn't it quite clear
And no, I don’t agree that taking so long immediately makes it more impressive that a student did it. How many experts are actively searching? And how many students? There are always more of the latter than the former. After long, fortuitous encounters (which anyone can have) become more common.
This is a bit much, I think. It is impressive because it is rare for an undergraduate to make a discovery. It’s not disillusionment with the educational system; that seems pretty politically charged. Normally, undergrads are studying what has been already known and it is a small portion of them that to do so”undergrad research” and usually that does not rise to the level of publishing anything. It’s normally graduate (MS and PhD) students that do such things. Also, graduate students, particularly PhD students, are primarily concerned with research while undergrads are primarily concerned with classes (educationally anyway!). Also, it would have also been surprising, as you say, if the student had been graduated for two-months and not in graduate school to make such a discovery. So, it’s not some grand reason or indictment of society. In the end, it is just plainly uncommon.
> It is impressive because it is rare for an undergraduate to make a discovery.
Is it? Looks like every other science story of this nature is “high school student did X”, “student at university Y discovered Z”. Perhaps they are the minority, but I still feel they happen often enough that it’s not really deserving of the always mentioning that.
> It’s not disillusionment with the educational system; that seems pretty politically charged.
Any political charged statement you read there is 100% in your head. Maybe in the USA such a simple statement could be politically charged, but where I live everyone would look at you like you had just lost the plot if you suggested that response.
> So, it’s not some grand reason or indictment of society.
Again, neither was I suggesting it was, merely postulating any hypothesis that could make sense.
> In the end, it is just plainly uncommon.
Doesn’t seem uncommon enough for me to warrant the frequent emphasis, but thank you anyway for taking the time to reply.
> It also makes me think about how much untapped potential might be hiding in the ordinary plants we pass by every day.
A ton, which is one selfish reason the genetic diversity collapse is such a negative. In this particular discovery, we already knew there was something interesting about the morning glory plant and it took us decades and decades to find it. To give you an idea how little plant life has been studied, we have sequenced the gnome of less than one thousand species.