Malcolm and Honorable Forum: NO generalization is "fair." The presumption always should be that judgment should be suspended until there is enough evidence to support or refute any generalization. I was one of those consultants for more than twenty years, and I worked in government for almost the same amount of time. I worked for consultants a few years in addition to that.
Neither of our sample sizes are adequate, but there is more than a little truth in both. I was an honest consultant and suffered a lot for it, but I'm glad I did, even though I didn't get rich--it isn't heavy guilt that keeps me awake. I have known a number of consulting companies that fit the prostitute mold. On the inside, we called them "eco-pimps" and "biostitutes." Some very good biologists and ecologists, honest and hardworking all, just got backed into a corner by circumstances--they weren't dishonest, but the work they did did support dishonest companies and clients. They lost a lot of sleep on it--because they were basically honest. Don't rely on me, ask other employees of consulting companies to tell tales about their experiences. I did witness high-level crookedness in government. That's an anecdote, aka, "the singular of data." Yes, there are people trying heroically in all of these categories to keep the North Sea from flooding Holland, freezing with their fingers in the dike, as it were. But my point was that, of the options under discussion, an honest person should expect dishonesty, be prepared for it, and act heroically rather than cave in to the temptation to slide, slowly and imperceptibly, into the muck. WT PS: I am delighted to hear that my data are out of date; I really do believe it, as I have great respect for the character of most of the young people I have met (despite their confusion of politics with science sometimes). ----- Original Message ----- From: malcolm McCallum To: Wayne Tyson Cc: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2011 7:42 PM Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] working in academia vs govt vs consultancies I know a handful of consultants, and none whom I would consider dishonest at all. Does that mean there aren't crooked consultants out there? Of courses not! But I suspect they are the exception rather than the rule. Industry probably gets the worst wrap in that regard, places like corporate tree farming companies, pesticide companies, etc. However you would be surprised to find out that many a USFWS or US EPA scientist or academic worked in industry for a time. The old idea of selling out I suspect has gone the way of the dodo, especially with an increasing trend of universities and colleges moving from education and into tech training philosophies (or worse). Generalizations of this sort are in my opinion unfair. Malcolm On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 7:43 PM, Wayne Tyson <[email protected]> wrote: Honorable Forum: Scholarship, research, science; all are endeavors of honesty. Their core is about holding one's own against the slippery slopes of bs, not about having an easy time of it. There is always some pressure to sell your soul to the power structure, to buss your way to fame and fortune--or even to scrape a bare existence out prostituting your credentials for "mere" money. It's like the old "boiling the frog" process--you keep going along with the incremental increases in temperature until it's too late to hop out of the pot. Unless . . . Unless you make a career of hopping so much that you get better and better at it. But even then, where do you draw the line? How much bs do you tolerate, especially when there's a mortgage to pay or endure hell at home--until you lose it. Well, there's always rose-colored glasses. I wouldn't recommend it (after all, I could have been just one of the unlucky ones), but sticking tight to principles is a good way to learn a different way from the school of hard-knocks (and of acquiring a flawed resume and enemies upstairs). If you can get past probation in a govt job, or tenure in academia, you can exercise quite a bit of intellectual/academic freedom if you can become inured to the slings and arrows of outrageous hierarchies and just "do your job." Such folks are real heroes--they scrupulously stand up for the taxpayers who pay their salaries and/or succor the little students that come unto them (then cast those fingerlings upon the precipitous frothy waves of survivorship curves and hope the best ones survive rather than the worst. 50/50 would be a decent ratio, but 10/90 would probably be fortuitous . . . (Fight to preserve tenure for its original purpose: to insulate the insolent from the arbitrary hierarchy of administrations--academic freedom means academic diversity--not for economic "security.") "Consultancies" probably are the worst. These are the real whore-houses of science, spawned in the well-intentioned, but self-righteously tossed-together expediencies like EPA, ESA (Endangered Species Act, not necessarily the other ESA), and all the other little _EQA's, ad infinitum. But, the money's good, and the "opportunities" for advancement are better. A real F_ _ _ _ _ _ bargain! The best of you can either seek out the few good universities and colleges left, or better yet, if you can stand it, stick it out in one of the bigger, heavily-infested ones, gather others to the cause, and transform these sclerotic institutions into something worthy of the challenge of resisting the influence of power that is grinding academic freedom, intellectual development, and service to humanity into dusty pits of ideological conformity. Or replace them with a new generation of learning loci. The ether's the limit! Or is that asking too much? WT -- Malcolm L. McCallum Managing Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology "Peer pressure is designed to contain anyone with a sense of drive" - Allan Nation 1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea" W.S.. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People! Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this message. 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