

Kyle Finchsigmate, founder of The Chem Blog, has told a fantastic story about a snobby scientist. It is not just entertaining, but also exposes a major flaw in the way that some researchers judge each other – they are shamefully disrespectful of scholars from little-known schools.

While attending a conference, the blogger and his friend from a different university walked around together at a poster session – which is a lot like a high school science fair. When they stopped to talk with a young nanoscientist, Finchsigmate's friend asked a series of rather smart questions and the conversation was going well. Then, the scholar who was showing off his work asked where the duo was from.

It went downhill from there.

Once the nanoscientist had learned that Finchsigmate's friend was from a less-than-famous school, his attitude immediately darkened. He chuckled, started to ignore their questions, then brazenly walked away from his poster and started talking to someone else.

Months later, the story came full circle. The elitist researcher had submitted a report to a top scientific journal and the scientist he snubbed was asked to review it.

If the paper was accepted, it would be really good news for the nanoscientist – an impressive line on his resume. He probably had no clue that someone who he had slighted could keep his paper from going to print. Lucky for him, the reviewer was probably big enough not to take their insulting encounter into account when judging the report.

Incidents like this probably happen very often, but their stories are too rarely told. Bravo to The Chem Blog for bringing it to light.