By SORTEE | August 30, 2021
[SORTEE Member Voices is a weekly Q&A with a different SORTEE member]
Name: Dylan Gomes.
Date: 02 July 2021.
Position: Postdoctoral Researcher.
Research and/or work interests: I am broadly interested in the wildlife conservation (especially human-impacts to wildlife), statistical methods (particularly LMM/GLMM), and the cultural and institutional practices in science (especially regarding sharing data and code, statistical/methodological choices, peer-review, and the hierarchical nature of research institutions and how this hierarchy influences author lists and workloads).
What do you now know about the way science gets done that you would have found surprising before you started your training as a scientist?:
I used to view scientific knowledge as indisputable fact. If it is in a textbook, it MUST be true. I now know that truth is never really on the table. Our best approximations of truth are riddled with error, biases, and overlooked assumptions. Science, to me now, is about understanding the magnitude of these things and how they come about. It is about minimizing these issues to make informed decisions, while realizing that universal truths are likely unobtainable.
Where to find you online?:
https://dylangegomes.wixsite.com/home
[The opinions expressed in this blog post are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by SORTEE.]