If I'm not the first author, I'm gonna take all my marbles and go home.
From Bioperl.info
This sentence was constructed to remind how badly we researchers can go against the very purpose of performing science usually funded by other people's money(called public fund). (The statement is not against the first authors).It is to warn people who are only interested in scoring paper numbers rather than performing fun, productive, good, and interesting scientific research in collaboration with people.
Do we honestly feel so thrillled and thankful when our close collleagues, in our lab doing the same kind of research as us, published a paper in a high impact journal? He/she looks so beautiful and we almost feel like to shed tear for him/her and his/her achievement?
Rather, I see so many of us feel fiercely jealous, somewhat empty, and a bit defeated while, of course, we socially and matureally congratulate him/her with warm smiles.
Let's try not be hypocritical in doing science.
We have a lot of situations and instances in society to be hypocritical already. Scientists are the intellectual brain of the scievilized society. No one can avoid being inconsistent, hypcritical and wrong in many situations of our lives, however, at least we science researchers need to be aware of such hypocracy and selfish/greedy attitude toward our own jobs.
Doing science is not for scoring high marks for the sake of high marks.
Doing science is not for earning medals in academic Olympics.
Sportsmanship and sciencemanship have different purposes and processes.
Jong Bhak | Biojustice | The problem of hypocracy
