Over at Cosmic Variance Sean has a nice post about asking questions in seminars (and, there is some very good discussion too):
My own attitude is pretty straightforward, and close to PP’s: it’s never impolite or out of order to ask appropriately probing questions about the material being presented at a scientific talk, regardless of the status of the speaker or the audience. It’s science, and we’re all on the same side; it doesn’t do anyone any favors to hide the truth in order to save someone’s feelings. Science is bigger than any of us, no matter how young and inexperienced or old and respected (feared) we may be. Not only should listeners feel free to ask any reasonable question of the speaker, but speakers should be honest enough to admit when they have said something that might be incorrect, rather than twisting around to find justifications for a slip-up. We’ve all made them; or at least I have.
To the extent that there is any sort of competition going on, it should not be “speaker vs. audience,” but rather “all of us vs. the natural world.” However, having staked out that absolutist position, it’s extremely important to recognize that we live in the real world. For one thing, many audience members tend to blur the distinction between “asking a good question” and “being an asshole.” There are people out there, one must admit, who tend to view seminar questions as a venue for them to demonstrate how smart they are, rather than learning about the subject matter in an open and collegial environment. There’s no excuse for that, and the guilty parties deserve to be smacked around, if only symbolically. Still, it’s no reason for the rest of us to equate hard questions with egotistical puffery, nor to soft-pedal questions that really are sincere. The biggest benefit of a talk, from the viewpoint of the speaker, would be to actually learn something from the questions and comments offered by the audience.
One of the things that is not mentioned either in the post or in the comments is that those who use the question hours of seminars as ego trips (and worse, those who admire people who ask such questions), by default, judge all questions with the same glasses. Once, I remember asking a question in a seminar — it was the last or the last but one. One of the faculty members in attendance took exception to the question because he thought that I was showing off by asking the question, and told me after the talk that if my aim is to show off, I should at least be the first one to ask the question, which will help end the session fast. After that, though I did not completely stop asking questions, I was careful when I did. Such incidents also lead to situations in which, the students, when they give seminars, try to be defensive, and try to think of ways of “not getting into trouble” instead of thinking about the ideas and concepts that they want to convey. Having said that, getting used to a hostile audience during grad school does prepare one for “life” since one is not always assured of the ideal audience; to that extent, even those who use questions as ego trips do make a contribution to one’s training, I suppose.
Tags: asking questions, seminar
