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'Not of faculty quality': How Penn mistreated Katalin Karikó

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11–20 of 361 posts

Re: 'Not of faculty quality': How Penn mistreated Katalin Karikó

#11

UPenn is in the news again. Something tells me the fish stinks from the head.

Your comment made me curious to look up their leadership page. As of this post, Katalin Karikó is featured very prominently on the president's page, above even the president herself. That's a pretty big mea culpa.

https://president.upenn.edu/

Re: 'Not of faculty quality': How Penn mistreated Katalin Karikó

#12
Academia does not value quality, but quantity. It selects for scientists who are the best at marketing and networking, not necessarily doing quality science, though they can also be.

I have no idea how to fix this, but competition needs to be reduced, probably by more guaranteed funding for positions, not just projects, as grants are. This latest military aid package is 2x the entire NIH budget, so surely there is more money for science out there.

Re: 'Not of faculty quality': How Penn mistreated Katalin Karikó

#13
post #7

Just a reminder Einstien who was the most revolutionary scientist since Newton was unable to secure a teaching position prior to publishing 3 nobel prize worthy papers in 1 year. Why do we think academia has suddenly magically changed?

Was he a good teacher?

Re: 'Not of faculty quality': How Penn mistreated Katalin Karikó

#14
post #11

UPenn is in the news again. Something tells me the fish stinks from the head.

Your comment made me curious to look up their leadership page. As of this post, Katalin Karikó is featured very prominently on the president's page, above even the president herself. That's a pretty big mea culpa. https://president.upenn.edu/

That's just taking undue credit.

Re: 'Not of faculty quality': How Penn mistreated Katalin Karikó

#15
post #11

UPenn is in the news again. Something tells me the fish stinks from the head.

Your comment made me curious to look up their leadership page. As of this post, Katalin Karikó is featured very prominently on the president's page, above even the president herself. That's a pretty big mea culpa. https://president.upenn.edu/

It's not a mea culpa if there is no sign at all of them admitting that they f*cked up.

Re: 'Not of faculty quality': How Penn mistreated Katalin Karikó

#16
post #7

Just a reminder Einstien who was the most revolutionary scientist since Newton was unable to secure a teaching position prior to publishing 3 nobel prize worthy papers in 1 year. Why do we think academia has suddenly magically changed?

Was he a good teacher?

Maybe that should play a role for getting university "teaching" positions but it doesn't. Neither did it play a role for Einstein.

Re: 'Not of faculty quality': How Penn mistreated Katalin Karikó

#17
I wish every disagreement was logged in a system so that, decades later, we could know who was right and who was wrong.

It would tell us who to listen to and who yo shun.

I had hopes that Internet forums would be that record, but the nukers destroyed that.

Re: 'Not of faculty quality': How Penn mistreated Katalin Karikó

#18
Physics Nobel winner Peter Higgs (of the boson) said the same ten years ago: “Today I wouldn't get an academic job. It's as simple as that. I don't think I would be regarded as productive enough.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-...

Re: 'Not of faculty quality': How Penn mistreated Katalin Karikó

#19

Academia does not value quality, but quantity. It selects for scientists who are the best at marketing and networking, not necessarily doing quality science, though they can also be. I have no idea how to fix this, but competition needs to be reduced, probably by more guaranteed funding for positions, not just projects, as grants are. This latest military aid package is 2x the entire NIH budget, so surely there is mo…

It's not really quality vs quantity.

The root problem is that (particularly in R1's) the job of raising money to perform the science has devolved somewhat to the level of individual labs and PI's, which creates an incentive that rewards good fundraisers in a much more predictable way than good researchers. In theory this could be addressed by more rigor in the funding agencies review processes, but they aren't resourced to really handle that.

It's like a baby (both in size and impact) version of the problem in US Congress & Senate.

Re: 'Not of faculty quality': How Penn mistreated Katalin Karikó

#20
I wish we had a way to see whether someone was right or wrong in the past so we can judge their decision making abilities. This would help us pick good leaders.

If only there were a way to document disagreements publicly so they could be reviewed at a later date.

I had hopes that Internet discussion forums would be that, but the nukers destroyed that along with most training materials for LLMs.

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