By SORTEE | December 6, 2021
[SORTEE member voices is a weekly Q&A with a different SORTEE member]
Name: Alexander Mielke.
Date: 02 July 2021.
Position: Postdoctoral Researcher.
Research and/or work interests: Primatology; Social Relationships; Cooperation.
What’s an ‘ORT’ subject or practice that you think deserves more attention?
I think we need to move from storing data in article-specific repositories (such as Dryad or Github) and towards a platform-system where raw datasets are publicly available. Access to data is a limiting factor for getting involved in ecological research, and currently raw data are still largely unavailable. Field Sites and labs should have standardised data-storage protocols, and there should be databases where labs working on similar topics can publish their data in a comparable format, removing barriers and allowing for comparable analyses.
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?
There often seems to be a perception of ‘scientists’ or specialists in general as one unified front, working towards a common goal and protecting their privileges (whatever they are). I don’t think anyone outside of the scientific system understands the odd and petty squabbles, where citations are based on friendship, adjacent fields develop distinct languages to delineate from each other, and everyone defends their pet theory to the death.
Where to find you online?:
https://www.alex-mielke.com/
