Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines • Hacker News Board

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#101

Post by mathgladiator » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

As a math person and technical person, I find myself so glad that I stayed out of academics and dropped out of my masters program to start a company.

This story is exceptionally inspiring because it speaks that we need people that are passionate to focus without worry of basics.

We need true believers to throw their lives at a hard problem.

The challenge is money. It is so easy to waste. It is so easy to squander on dead ends. This ease makes people conservative and less bold because we make it so hard to get.

It's clear we don't have a good system. I had hopes that I could pursue my passions within big companies by climbing the ladder, and that hasn't worked out.

Fortunately for myself, I can retire at any moment and throw my life at my silly programming language: http://www.adama-lang.org/

Perhaps, there is wisdom in teaching finance to everyone such that people can focus on productive existing problems that yield fruit. This helps contextualize people towards present day concerns and the nature of problems. Then, if people leverage the beauty of wall st then more scientists can throw their lives towards good problems.

I don't know, but I'm sure many of us wish we could align funding with passions without the need to build a company.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#102

Post by burntoutfire » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #3

Well, it's no surprise that people optimize to the metric that's available, right? Private labs aim to make production things. Public labs aim to collect grants. The only real hope for modern science is a business with a long-term view. That's because that business is only rewarded if their thing works. If there was ever a time when public academics worked for science, it is no longer that today. Now it is occupied b…

> The only real hope for modern science is a business with a long-term view. That's because that business is only rewarded if their thing works.

There are limits to that logic though. For example, the business can spend billions on researching more addicting cigarettes or can direct money to drugs which merely manage the disease instead of curing it (as disease management makes you a customer for life).

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#103

Post by lumost » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

slumdev wrote: post #93

idrios wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biomedical engineer with a 2.977GPA. Lots of extra curriculars, volunteered in labs, 160 credit hours of mostly STEM classes, lots of grad-level courses, relevant work experience, but GPA was 0.023 too low to pass the automated filters and I didn't get into any of the grad programs I applied for. I ended up doing fine in software development though. Also, the Wright Brothers didn't need a research lab to invent fligh…

> GPA was 0.023 too low to pass the automated filters Your application was most likely reviewed by real people, not just automated filters. People with GPAs below 3 do get into competitive grad programs (and med school). An upward trend is the key.

I'm sure this happens to some people with the right combination of luck, perseverance, and recommendations. It's probably far more likely at your current institution as you already have relationships with professors who sit on the admissions committee. Particularly if you are already productive in a lab and the principal researcher goes to bat for you.

That doesn't change the OPs point that this is an uphill battle. If they didn't have the above, or they could only get into the right program then it still leaves them with better alternatives elsewhere. Harvard almost certainly filters all candidates with a GPA less than 3.0. Unfortunately academic grades have a poor correlation with future career or research performance.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#104

Post by burntoutfire » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

lumost wrote: post #66

LeanderK wrote: post #52

I have been thinking recently how to reform the science system here in germany, which is somewhat similar to the system in the US. What I think is impossible is to completely eliminate the grant chasing for the early career scientist. It's just that there's more supply than demand in a lot of sciences and not everyone can make it, if we try to give everyone a grant we end up with grants that are not really paying for…

This is a common problem in many commodity markets. If creating new supply is inexpensive, and all market participants have functionally equivalent technology and operational expertise. New supply will always emerge to eat away any margin that a market participant may have. (Think Restaurants, farming, small-time delivery/construction, uber driving) If you follow this through to the extreme you end up with a vicious…

> If you follow this through to the extreme you end up with a vicious cycle of boom/bust where any demand opportunity that emerges is crushed under 10x the supply increase. The market becomes unstable as new participants have clean balance sheets and older participants go into debt that cannot be paid. Supply is only maintained through the addition of new market participants willing to lose their capital or burn their balance sheet on debt in a private parallel to the tragedy of the commons.

You've described the indie games industry.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#105

Post by amelius » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

thayne wrote: post #29

I am a casualty of this. I was originally intending to follow an academic career, until I discovered that my career would be dependent on my ability to secure grants. Something that if I was not bad at (which I think is unlikely), would at least be extremely stressful for me. It isn't the only reason I decided to to switch to being a software engineer, but it is a major reason.

I wonder when academia will be a thing of the past. These days, sadly, most research is performed in companies anyway.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#106

Post by saboot » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

raziel2701 wrote: post #63

odyssey7 wrote: post #56

Is it counterproductive that we expect researchers to work in universities and become professors? It seems like there should be more outlets for the calling. Our universities are proving to be a bottleneck. I see how there is an often-natural relationship between cultivating knowledge and disseminating it to students. However, we need and have more prospective researchers than universities are willing or able to supp…

That's been a question I have no answer to: What do we do with all these smart people? Currently most just go inside hierarchical workplaces where they have to learn to play office politics and carry out meaningless job functions in exchange for financial security. We don't have a Bell labs anymore, science is getting more expensive and most of the venture capital money goes to software rather than to the more capita…

We may not have a Bell Labs, but we have the entire complex of national laboratories which have pivoted from solely developing nuclear weapons towards more basic science.

I work in them .. it's really strange how much of the public is unaware of all the work we do, thousands of PhDs are employed through them currently doing basic science funded by tax payers.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#107

Post by Skyy93 » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

Science these days has many problems and this is one of them. Securing grants to finance your further way is crucial. But mostly hard work is only appreciated if there are good, valid and reproducable results.

I discovered another problem while wrting my master thesis and it's also pretty hard to determine good and valid results from papers. There are so many papers out there that are not reproducable especially in computer science. Or the paper is missing very important facts that would help you to reproduce results.

I think there should be a system to remove or mark papers as non-reproducable to prevent wasted time.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#108

Post by saboot » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

bnralt wrote: post #75

raziel2701 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's been a question I have no answer to: What do we do with all these smart people? Currently most just go inside hierarchical workplaces where they have to learn to play office politics and carry out meaningless job functions in exchange for financial security. We don't have a Bell labs anymore, science is getting more expensive and most of the venture capital money goes to software rather than to the more capita…

It seems like this is exactly the kind of thing that a government is useful for. Why not have more publicly funded research institutions that employ them, and put them to work on useful research without having them worry about grant considerations, teaching classes, or the publishing treadmill?

We do ..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federally_funded_research_and_...

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#109

Post by laretluval » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:04 PM UTC

alpineidyll3 wrote: post #69

thayne wrote: post #29

I am a casualty of this. I was originally intending to follow an academic career, until I discovered that my career would be dependent on my ability to secure grants. Something that if I was not bad at (which I think is unlikely), would at least be extremely stressful for me. It isn't the only reason I decided to to switch to being a software engineer, but it is a major reason.

The grant system completely compromises most faculty'$ ability to do anything with their decades of training besides sell themselves. Especially young faculty during their most productive years. The only way to turn this around is to change the way we give credit for scientific achievements, and stop rewarding "I wrote the grant" With authorships. (Im ex faculty)

> stop rewarding "I wrote the grant" With authorships.

How could this work? If you have more grant money you have more resources to write papers.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#110

Post by dr_dshiv » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #86

dr_dshiv wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your idea that science is a company is a grossly inadequate metaphor. That's not what science is!

So what would you compare it to then? The startup ecosystem?

Philosophical advancement of the human species