Advice for young researchers
From Andrew Oswald, via the excellent Angus:, here is the opening bit:
If everyone likes your work, you can be certain that you haven’t done anything important. Conflict and pain go with the territory —that of changing how a profession thinks and furthering what we know about our world. The pressures on young researchers are to conform, to accept fashionable ways of analyzing problems, and above all to please senior professors and their own peers. Unfortunately this is bad for scientific progress.
The main difference between world-class researchers and sound researchers is not intellect; it is energy, single-mindedness, more energy, and the ability to withstand what will sometimes feel like never-ending disappointment, tiredness and psychological pain. Tenacity is almost everything.