Nature is diversified, human nature is more diversified. This diversity in human nature shows more precision when we compare (say) two or more humans with respect to a fixed profession. Sometimes these diversified behaviours are very hilarious. I came across this aspect of human nature in research profession too. Now as I am writing this article, this is tickling my funny bones.
Charles Darwin, in his ‘Origin of Species’ described many instances of peculiarities among plant and animal kingdoms. One such which grabbed my attention, and which I am going to correlate with my objective of this article, is the following. Darwin talked about slave making instincts of ants. This remarkable instinct can be observed in various types of ant species, specifically in Formica (Polyerges) rufescens and Formica sanguinea, which are the two protagonists of my present article. The significant difference between these two communities are as follows.
F. rufescens (FR) is completely dependent on slave ants from its own community. The slave ants determine the life style of FR. FRs don’t build their own nest, don’t determine their own migration (which is part and parcel for survival), don’t collect their own foods and cannot even feed themselves. Their slave ants do the above activities for the masters. On the other hand, Formica sanguinea (FS) have limited number of slaves. In this case, the masters determine when and where a new nest will be built; when and where to migrate. During migration FRs are carried by their slaves while FSs carry their slaves. When FRs’ are not given access to their slaves, the masters don’t survive whereas in the FSs’ community, the slaves are sometimes mingled with their masters leaving the nests and marching towards survival together.
The article is inspired by Charles’ Darwin’s “Origin of Species” and an hilarious take on the research community.
In my research career, I also saw, and that I can remember now, F. rufescens and F. sanguinea supervisors. To me F. rufescens master is that person, who though once was active in his area of expertise, is now exhausted with ideas. So he looks forward to his scholars to publish papers. He asks his students to look for a new idea. The scholars search in archive, migrate to a new sub-branch if needed. During this process they convince their master and put him to the new shoes so that they can quickly fill their dry lands with drinkable water. But if the scholars physically migrate somewhere else, the master doesn’t survive. But this never happens as F. rufescens master makes many slaves. F. sanguinea supervisor, on the other hand, takes very few students under his umbrella and he is happy with that. Because this type of supervisor builds his own domain of interest, he attends colloquiums and seminars and he determines whether any sort of migration is at all needed for his scholars. So scholars of F. sanguinea scholars live a happier and worry-free life than those of F. rufescens’ whereas F. rufescens community scholars are more hardworking than that of F. sanguinea’s.
If the reader of my above prose is a research scholar, this will make him wonder as to which community of scholars he/she belongs.