Yes.
Is your answer an example of the possible outcome of the proposal? Shorter papers with less content (but more frequently)?
1
Give researchers a lifetime word limit
11–20 of 49 posts
Re: Give researchers a lifetime word limit
#12It's amazing how much hand wringing is done about the symptoms of problems in academia (especially life sciences) without anyone actually addressing the root causes. The reason all of these problems exist is because the space is over populated, ruthlessly competitive, and under funded. It's really that simple.
Create many more professorship positions for post docs, raise the NIH, NSF, and DOD research budgets to where they should be, and all of these problems will go away. Trying to solve these problem by throttling the number of papers people can publish is putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound.
Re: Give researchers a lifetime word limit
#13It's amazing how much hand wringing is done about the symptoms of problems in academia (especially life sciences) without anyone actually addressing the root causes. The reason all of these problems exist is because the space is over populated, ruthlessly competitive, and under funded. It's really that simple. Create many more professorship positions for post docs, raise the NIH, NSF, and DOD research budgets to wher…
"I firmly believe that this problem cannot be solved by more government money. If federal support for basic research were to be doubled (as many are calling for), the result would merely be to tack on a few more years of exponential expansion before we'd find ourselves in exactly the same situation again."
David Goodstein, "The Big Crunch" http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
Re: Give researchers a lifetime word limit
#14It's amazing how much hand wringing is done about the symptoms of problems in academia (especially life sciences) without anyone actually addressing the root causes. The reason all of these problems exist is because the space is over populated, ruthlessly competitive, and under funded. It's really that simple. Create many more professorship positions for post docs, raise the NIH, NSF, and DOD research budgets to wher…
"I firmly believe that this problem cannot be solved by more government money. If federal support for basic research were to be doubled (as many are calling for), the result would merely be to tack on a few more years of exponential expansion before we'd find ourselves in exactly the same situation again." David Goodstein, "The Big Crunch" http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
I had not read this before and that's a valid point, thanks for sharing.
I think I would say two things to this. First, theoretically we could attack the problem from both sides. We could constrain supply in the way that med school prevents an oversupply of physicians while also increasing the total amount of resources available to those practicing science.
More practically, I tend to believe that basic and translational science is a huge boon to global prosperity and also an economic engine for the United States. Ergo, if we run into the same problem down the road again, just keep raising the budget and make more positions. We have a long way to go before we exhaust the benefits of additional research, and the money we spend on research is a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on other less useful ventures.
Re: Give researchers a lifetime word limit
#15It's amazing how much hand wringing is done about the symptoms of problems in academia (especially life sciences) without anyone actually addressing the root causes. The reason all of these problems exist is because the space is over populated, ruthlessly competitive, and under funded. It's really that simple. Create many more professorship positions for post docs, raise the NIH, NSF, and DOD research budgets to wher…
I smell some unsubstantiated opinions. Raise government research budgets to "where they should be" sounds like a good recipe for wasteful spending.
I might be on board with "govt matches private contributions."
Re: Give researchers a lifetime word limit
#16The lifetime word limit should not apply to papers publishing negative results.
You may all congratulate me (financially) for solving the replication crisis.
Re: Give researchers a lifetime word limit
#17This is a terrible idea. Here is a better idea:
- Change tenure criteria to something closer to “number of students * average quality of dissertation”
- Expect fewer (0-2) but higher-quality publications from grad students applying for tenure track positions.
Re: Give researchers a lifetime word limit
#18This is a terrible idea. Here is a better idea: - Change tenure criteria to something closer to “number of students * average quality of dissertation” - Expect fewer (0-2) but higher-quality publications from grad students applying for tenure track positions.
Wouldn't that give people an incentive to have lots of students, thus making the PhD glut worse?
I guess it depends on how the two factors are weighted.
Re: Give researchers a lifetime word limit
#19This is a terrible idea. Here is a better idea: - Change tenure criteria to something closer to “number of students * average quality of dissertation” - Expect fewer (0-2) but higher-quality publications from grad students applying for tenure track positions.
I think it might be equally, if not, more important to graduate only a suitable number of students/postdocs so that the majority of those that want academic positions will find those openings available.
I'm not sure how to balance these issues.
Re: Give researchers a lifetime word limit
#20It's amazing how much hand wringing is done about the symptoms of problems in academia (especially life sciences) without anyone actually addressing the root causes. The reason all of these problems exist is because the space is over populated, ruthlessly competitive, and under funded. It's really that simple. Create many more professorship positions for post docs, raise the NIH, NSF, and DOD research budgets to wher…
"I firmly believe that this problem cannot be solved by more government money. If federal support for basic research were to be doubled (as many are calling for), the result would merely be to tack on a few more years of exponential expansion before we'd find ourselves in exactly the same situation again." David Goodstein, "The Big Crunch" http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
I agree, more money might contribute to more research and may or may not be a useful expenditure but I don't think it will solve the problems mentioned. It seems that limiting the number of PhD/post-doc postions such that they have a high likelyhood of ataining academic positions is the correct course. Although, I'm less familiar with the medical education system in the US/Canada it seems like this is roughly the model they follow.
We don't need industry taking advantage of the glut of PhD grads, they could be responsible for training and not take academics who quit because they can't find suitable jobs after graduation.