“This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”
1–10 of 144 posts
Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”
#2"I found scientists to be more preoccupied by their own survival in a very competitive research environment than by the development of a true understanding of the world."
I have found this as well. However it's important to remember that before one can do good work, one has to find funding for the good work. It's a complex problem.
Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”
#3Usually we only hear this from the disgruntled. It is valuable to hear this perspective from someone who perceives themselves as happy and successful.
> because I know how they were obtained.
This is similar to one of the reasons I left graduate school.
I realized that everyone who plays ball and puts in the hours gets a PhD. And I saw incomprehensible postdoc hires. Lots of things didn't even look like significant accomplishments (or even all that hard, and I'm no rockstar).
Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”
#4"I found scientists to be more preoccupied by their own survival in a very competitive research environment than by the development of a true understanding of the world." I have found this as well. However it's important to remember that before one can do good work, one has to find funding for the good work. It's a complex problem.
[deleted]
Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”
#5[deleted]
Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”
#6David Eagleman is a good one, and plays a mean harmonica too.
Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”
#7Looks like it's a good time to start automating scientific research...
Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”
#8"I found scientists to be more preoccupied by their own survival in a very competitive research environment than by the development of a true understanding of the world." I have found this as well. However it's important to remember that before one can do good work, one has to find funding for the good work. It's a complex problem.
"Of course, this does not mean that I will abandon all of my activities related to the search or dissemination of knowledge. I will still teach my courses in Biology and Artificial Intelligence at the University of the People, I will still publish my book, The Revolutionary Phenotype, which contains an important novel theory on the emergence of life. I will still publish the Season 2 of NEURO.tv, for which we have gathered amazing guests. I will still go talk science and have fun with the Drunken Peasants. In fact, my leave will likely give me more time to concentrate on these important activities. The reality is that throughout the years, my attention has drifted away from research academia, because I found other ways to satisfy my scientific curiosity that seemed more appealing and more genuine to me."
"There is a general rejection of these alternative paths to knowledge dissemination in academia, but I have grown out of caring about it. Selling knowledge and prestige are the bread and butter of universities, so we should not be surprised to see the main recipients of the flow of money coming from well-wishing parents and governmental funding agencies dismiss the validity of other, less socially costly paths to knowledge dissemination."
Seems like he's found other more effective ways for him and for others learning than to do more of the "good work"[0].
[0] "…produce multiple scientific articles per year, none of which having any significant impact on our understanding of the world, similarly to how a chicken who's head has been cut can still walk, but not toward any sort of goal. This issue reveals itself in a series of noxious conditions that are affecting me and my colleagues: a high number of scientific articles with fraudulent data due to the pressures of the "publish or perish" system makes it impossible to know if a recent discovery is true or not; a large portion of the time of a scientist is spent just writing grants so that they can be submitted to 5-10 agencies in the hope that one of them will accept; and a scientific publication system that has become so corrupted that it is almost impossible to get a scientific article published without talking one-on-one with the editor before submitting the article."
Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”
#9I feel the same thing in huge companies in which the employees are insulated from market forces. Aren't we supposed to be, like, building stuff that users want? Rather than just trying to get promoted and game the system?
IQ and motivation are independent variables... it's a shame when people with high IQs exert tons of effort in small-minded directions, or just toward fighting each other.
Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”
#10"I found scientists to be more preoccupied by their own survival in a very competitive research environment than by the development of a true understanding of the world." I have found this as well. However it's important to remember that before one can do good work, one has to find funding for the good work. It's a complex problem.
"Of course, this does not mean that I will abandon all of my activities related to the search or dissemination of knowledge. I will still teach my courses in Biology and Artificial Intelligence at the University of the People, I will still publish my book, The Revolutionary Phenotype, which contains an important novel theory on the emergence of life. I will still publish the Season 2 of NEURO.tv, for which we have ga…
It's not fair to twist people's words like that. If the poster meant churning out papers by "good work" then the whole post would not make sense. A much more reasonable interpretation would be "in order to produce good papers, or things that are less rewarded (e.g. books), one needs to play the academic game in the meantime and churn out mediocre/bad papers".
The main issue as I see it is not that good papers are not rewarded, but rather that bad/mediocre papers are rewarded far more than they deserve. This means that the incentive to work hard on a breakthrough is diminished.