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

#121

Post by pvaldes » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:55 PM UTC

tensor wrote: post #36

renewiltord wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know fraudulent science is performed in many university labs. If you read the papers you will see only what you think is science. But the results are falsified. The slides are fake. So maybe output is high but determining what is true output is hard. And nearly no one replicates. I'm sorry that I can't give you info. It's not useful to me or my family to prove this. But consider this a warning. If you move subtly e…

I've spent many years in the academic spaces, both in public genetics labs as well as in computer science departments. I've never encountered anything like what you claim, and no one I know in academia has either. Extraordinary claims like yours need proof, no one will or should take you at your word, especially when there is the weight of many others experiences that cut against your claims.

> Extraordinary claims like yours need proof

Scientific scam (or scientific mistake, not necessarily deliberate) is well documented in fact. It seems that >1800 published articles were retracted in 2020 by scientific journals, including 72 related with covid [1] so, maybe is not common, but yes, sometimes it happens. There is nothing extraordinary in that idea. The ideology that requires scientists to be a replacement for the figure of the religious saint is stupid.

[1] An example: 5G Technology and induction of coronavirus in skin cells. Biological Regulators & Homeostatic Agents. July 16, 2020. "showed evidence of substantial manipulation of the peer review"

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

#122

Post by acomjean » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:55 PM UTC

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #54

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…

> Biology-focused hacker spaces are on the rise so there are still ways to do research. I am very interested in this concept. Are you thinking of any in particular? I really wish people invested in public spaces people could go do science, particularly chemistry.

In Cambridge MA there is Bos Lab: (microbiology).

https://www.boslab.org/

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

#123

Post by etrautmann » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:57 PM UTC

josephg wrote: post #119

timr wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The grant system completely compromises most faculty'$ ability to do anything with their decades of training besides sell themselves. I agree that the academic world is broken, but this narrative that success -- in any field -- isn't dependent on your ability to sell yourself is problematic. I left academia behind because I saw that it was a brutal, improbable grind, sure, but mainly because I could see that the sa…

> but this narrative that success -- in any field -- isn't dependent on your ability to sell yourself is problematic. Some people make fantastic researchers and are terrible at selling themselves and their work. It seems like a bad deal for everyone if these people are blocked from making contributions to science.

Yes - the idea that everyone in science must be a fantastic Jack or Jill of all trades is absurd. There is no room for oddballs that are missing any of 20 subtle skills, including many social ones that should have little to do with research skill. Incentivizing teams to succeed instead of individuals is essential for reforming our current broken system.

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

#124

Post by atemerev » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:57 PM UTC

Went from 15 years experience as a financial software engineer to a junior researcher position in the local university, while working towards a biomedical PhD. Was never happier.

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

#125

Post by phobosanomaly » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 10:59 PM UTC

itronitron wrote: post #89

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…

I doubt that most researchers work in universities. Every large product company (food, pharma, automotive, gaming) has multiple research groups, and while they tend to be very small relative to the larger company they are probably much bigger than most academic departments.

Add to this that there is a lot of research that goes into production processes and translation from a basic-sciences setting to a production setting.

So, say you have a novel antibody, you have to have a ton of non-academic researchers who have to figure out how to make the thing stable, safe, scalable, deliverable, cost-effective, etc.

It's all research, just not university-style research.

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

#126

Post by neltnerb » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 11:01 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 wouldn't call myself a casualty, but I was definitely considering being a professor and definitely decided not to after seeing how ridiculously hard my adviser had to work despite her being famous and well funded.

It just didn't seem like a job that one could do for decades without ruining their health. I'm amazed by the people who do manage to do it, but I'm confident that my decision was the right one.

Instead, someone else will be the person to study how to use ML to develop new catalyst types, and I'm sad that all the thought and effort I've put into figuring it out will probably just never be of use to anyone. I'm not a good enough programmer for Google, so basically what other option would I have other than academia or a national lab? The problem isn't going to be solved in five years, but the rewards... maybe not mRNA vaccine level but reducing energy and resource waste with more efficient conversion technologies across the entirety of modern civilization seems worthwhile.

I don't even mind writing grants that much and have gotten lots of them for industry research. And I absolutely love mentoring. But I just know from what I saw that I have no desire to try to handle that much entirely unnecessary extra stress, even though it means that I do mostly straightforward electrical engineering despite having invented entirely new catalyst design technologies being used in industrial facilities.

Would I love to still be working in chemicals and energy more directly? Absolutely! Am I willing to do it for a third the salary with 80 hour work weeks having to scramble desperately to network in order to gain enough mindshare to get people to even listen to my proposals? I wish I had that kind of stamina.

Which is to say, ultimately, that I have no interest in academic politics. I want to solve these problems, and no longer have the energy to pursue another startup.

Maybe in another five years when there are more companies finally doing it I can just get a job there. Sadly I can guess that they will instead just get ML researchers and assume teaching them catalyst science will be easier than teaching me ML tools because ML didn't exist when I was in grad school as much of a thing yet so by sheer misfortune of timing I didn't learn it until my 30s.

It's just sad to me that I see no realistic way to get involved even though it's my honest life passion to fix this problem and it's such a stupid struggle to get support. It would have been really nice to feel supported in doing such work inside of academia.

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

#127

Post by benibela » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 11:09 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 have been writing a grant proposal for months

I am also supposed to have finished it months ago, but I really have no idea what I should write there. The current grant from my PI expires in two weeks, and then I have no funding

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

#128

Post by raziel2701 » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 11:09 PM UTC

saboot wrote: post #106

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…

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.

I'm employed in one of them and it is a very bureaucratic, political environment. Our facilities are dilapidated despite the billions in funding, resources are so wastefully spent, there's a lot of siloed equipment, a lot of unused equipment, and it's not unusual to see the lab fund the same project twice but run by different people. I would be so curious for an audit to be done to the lab just to see how misspent the money is.

This place I'm in is top-down research. The research ideas that one proposes have to be aligned with certain wishlists and pre-determined directions. It's not a place of innovation, but stagnation. This national lab feels more like a jobs program for phds, but with a sisyphean twist, it lacks vision.

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

#129

Post by raziel2701 » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 11:13 PM UTC

phobosanomaly wrote: post #118

alisonkisk wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What public money do you think is going toward producing PhDs? PhDs are funded by teaching and research work. They aren't paid to get the PhD.

The research part is often funded by public grant money. > They aren't paid to get the PhD. PhD students are often paid salaries/stipends derived from (often public) grant money.

And the best part is that all this public money results in research papers that lie behind a private paywall. How have we allowed for this fraud to go on and on?

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

#130

Post by pvaldes » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 11:13 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…

> All that training, for nothing

All that training, for money that you pay to the university.

From the point of view of that companies, the more people failing, the more profitable is their activity, as long as the supply of new people wanting to try it does not dry. There is a reason for the words "inspire", "young" and lately "women" having a prominent place and being repeated again and again in every newspaper or report about scientists.