Paul Knoepfler

I've been in science as a PI for about a half dozen years, but before that I was a postdoc for a long (let's say indeterminate) time and a grad student and before that a technician. 

Over all those years I've witnessed scientists saying and writing some pretty horrible things about each other...sadly sometimes these insults have been written about me in grant critiques. It took me a while sometimes to even realize I was being insulted.
 
In fact, many times these cut throat insults are slightly covert, especially to newbs or non-scientists.

Therefore, on my blog today I posted a guide to insulting other scientists and let's just say the response has been overwhelming in terms of this list of 10 insults ringing true and hitting below the belt (or should I saw below the lab coat pocket). 

Amongst the insults include publishing in specialized journals, being a good educator, and paradoxically being called a "very good scientist". 

There's a lot more pain and irony as well in that posting so read on.

Have these comments been said about you? Have you said them about others? Do you know rejoice for having new ammunition to attack your nemesis? 

It's all there.

In fact, already I have a new list in the works of 10 even nastier ways scientists insult each other from my readers' suggestions that I'm going to post tomorrow. Stay tuned! If you have more ideas for how scientists insult each other let me know. I didn't realize I was sort of creating a monster, but it's an interesting monster. Amongst the new, more biting insults for other scientists include "wonderful mother".