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--- potsdam2019:session_1_-_processes_in_research [2019/11/28 16:08] – created markus
+++ potsdam2019:session_1_-_processes_in_research [2019/12/09 18:55] (current) – admin
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-====== Session 1 - processes in research ======
+====== Session 1 - Processes in Research ======
+Participants: Markus, Florian, Berna, Pedro, Flavia, Guilherme, Robin, Maria, Julia, Mona, Richard (later)
+After the get to know each other, we had a longer coffee break during which the last participants arrived. Before Markus had distributed copies of his inspirational text (see below), such that the people could start reading during the break. We started the session with Markus summarizing one argument of his text:
+"Do you think that the research process is lost in academic science? And if yes, do you think this is bad?"
+The discussion manifested around two kind of controversial arguments that had their supporters.
+Guilherme / Pedro / Flavio: \\
+The research process is very complex and confusing. Since time is very limited in every form of presentation of the scientific work, it is better to leave out process completely. This also has the advantage that other people are less biased and are encouraged to give better examples.
+Markus / Berna / Florian / Robin / (Maria?) / Mona (later Richard):
+The outcome/result of a process depends on the process, thus it matters a lot how we arrived there. Some people argued that the outcome is completely dependent on the process. Mona/ Markus mention Picasso and the development of La Guernica which he documented. We can A learn from such documentations, and B Picasso changed his concept during the painting and it was never clear which would be the outcome. Many participants argued that this might be true in arts, but in hard sciences like physics the outcome is predetermined. Berna responds that even if this might be true, still one process could be more effective or less difficult and thus it is very important to think about and deal with it.
+During this discussion, the topic of how constraint science is came up. We summarize this discussion in session three, where it came up again. Pedro: natural laws are the constraints of science thus there is no choice like in arts. Robin/Robert: maybe only the language of mathematics is constraining.
+The discussion turns more the the question: "What is actually research process and how do you deal with and document your process?"
+Robin: "Since process is complicated, one can try to focus on the most important parts of it and one example is, when I changed my mind about something and this is worth to document."
+Berna keeps a lab book as a kind of "obsession".
+Flavio/Guilherme typically do not do any documentation and do not regard it as helpful. Flavio highlights the important aspect of speaking to fellow scientists in the process of doing science. Guilherme says for him writing down stuff sometimes feels egoistic.
+Mona as an artist documents a lot (in form of notes, sketches and whatever comes up) and this is a key part of her work. She often goes back to this and uses it also as part of her work! It is very important to figure out god ways to do documentation.
+Pedro had very fruitful experiences with researching about the history of certain ideas/theories.
+Richard tells an anecdote from his work, where research processes were not documented and its contests lost to the pity of a later generation. In the field of heartpumps, many ideas have been proposed during the 90ies for optimization, but the were technically impossible and regarded as never possible. However, technology has so much improved in the last decades that probably many ideas today would be realizable. People only remember that there were these ideas, but the details are lost. The lesson to learn here is that what one might consider as unimportant at a certain moment, could be very useful later and we cannot anticipate this knowledge. Richard adds that the best results are achieved in an 'unbounded' environment.
+Pedro argues that on the other hand science is foundationally constrained.
+Guilherme mentions "Originals" book by Adam Grant and a new-darwinist viewpoint on research processes.
+Berna says any documentation should put human into focus, not an idealized view on science.
+Robin says we should get away from our genius-obsession.
+Maria says it would be interesting to record influences and have a collective story.
+Florian says the process is of course important but generally not appreciated.
+Berna tells that Leo is documenting a lot of his "processes", at the moment a project his project of sewing the clothes of one year all by himself ([[examples_for_process_documentation#sewing_a_shirt_collar_--_a_process_documentation |see also here]]). There is a prominence on focusing on the process in management.
+Flavio tells that old papers sometimes do include personal stories and mentions the private contacts that have contributed and how. Also in experimental physics a lab book is mandatory.
+Maria says that sometimes weekly reports are requested that also serve as a means of control. "Stories" would be a good introduction for papers, since mostly this is done poorly. Florian says that also feelings are an important part in the process (later Markus asks, what about Emojis in papers). Flavio asks how this focus on the process should help, where Florian answers with a hint towards communication and language problems between fields, there is the idea of a "translation paper" between fields (this is in conjunction with Richard's music example, see below).
+The last part of the session focused on "how to improve dealing with processes and when could that be useful."
+We agree that process are almost not reflected in scientific output like papers (and from the conference on history of science we learned that processes in the sense of history often is told wrongly in books)
+Florian argues that if scientific truth depends on the approach to describe it, the process to arrive there becomes automatically more important. Richard:  "Something similar happens in classical music. Forte means something completely different for Bach and for Beethoven. Among good pianist, there is no question about this. Thus, what does Forte mean? Behind that, there is a process in the development of classical music of course. And dealing with this process is very helpful in understanding what Bach or Beethoven meant!" Richard highlights the purpose of "études" as study parts in music.
+Robin mentions the potential of arxiv to upload unconventional forms of research outputs. Es example he names a paper of C. Rovelli, where he published two "opposing truth" of string theorists and conservationists approaches to quantum gravity in terms of a fictive dialogue. Generally, the "translation" between different fields of physics become topic (story from Florian about his own research, where his group is between the field of quantum chemistry and quantum optics and translation is one of the major obstacles. He argues that if others would have written down their process of understanding the point of view of the respective other field - by for example publishing the peer review - this would have helped a lot!)
+Berna says that making the personal process available could help people in understanding, Markus gives the simple example of a longer version of a paper that he has on arxiv with some extra explanations and examples. Maria adds the example of lecture notes on arxiv.
+Chris Fucks was mentioned, who publishes complete mail conversations in arxiv, which is a form of documentation of his research process. The process as a clash of opinions can be seen there. Also the peer-review process should be made public in the same spirit (it is for a number of high-impact journals)
+Markus tells a story about his research process with a colleague that always has a different opinion than Markus, but still they work together and publish together. Here it is very interesting to see how scientific knowledge is created by the process between two scientist (with strong opposing opinions).
+There are many contributions highlighting that dealing with his or her own process can be very important for self reflection.
+===== Preparation Material of the Organizers =====
 {{ :potsdam2019:process-condensate.pdf | Inspirational text by Markus}}
+From here is preparation material by Florian.
 ==== Why at all talking about process? ====
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 > Well, I think the analogy works this well for applied science/research, either theoretical or experimental. My point is that for basic research things are rather different: you simply don't have an idea out of the blue, but must piece together a set of principles, the whole process being heavily constrained by known facts. Unlike this, the artist does have full freedom in her choice. Moreover, the success of the final product depends a lot on the target audience, whereas the scientific output only depends on empirical confirmation.
-  * Another argument: there is not much experience in classical science. But maybe we can search in other fields: ARTS
+  * Another argument: there is not much experience in classical science in "dealing" with the process. But maybe we can search in other fields: ARTS, \\ (History of Science also very promising as some of the antendees have seen the last two days)
 ==== Example: The scientific diary ====
+(this part did not enter the discussion in the end)
 SHORT PRESENTATION: An example of "interacting" with a research process
@@ Line 57: / Line 115: @@
 Sol LeWitt
 > In conceptual art, the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means tall all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctionary affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.
+[[examples for process documentation]]