Competition good for science, bad for scientists: Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

Competition is good for science, but bad for scientists, Nobel Laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan said, asserting that while competition is intrinsic, the system tends to exacerbate it.

The eminent structural biologist said there were many other ways of looking at the world and urged scientists not to forget the human, emotional and social side of nature.

Ramakrishnan was speaking in a discussion on his new book "Gene Machine and The Culture of Science" at the Jaipur Literature Festival Friday.

"Competition is good for science, but bad for scientists. While competition is intrinsic, the system tends to exacerbate it," he said.

He also emphasised on India's need to "re-think the funding models" while drawing a comparison with South Korea and Israel.

"Change will be a slow process and re-thinking our funding models is necessary... India, for example, only spends 0.7 per cent of its GDP on science, in comparison with countries like South Korea and Israel that spend nearly 3-4 per cent of their GDP," he added.

The 67-year-old scientist won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Thomas A Steitz and Ada Yonath, for his research in the structure and function of the ribosomes in 2009.

The President of the Royal Society also touched upon other topics like music and art and on the journey of a scientist as a human being in the discussion with Priyamvada Natarajan, professor of Astronomy at Yale University.

Responding to a question on how music impacts ribosomes, Ramakrishnan said, "Music is a little bit of a mystery. There is something deep and fundamental about it that I don't understand, but I am grateful it exists."