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An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia

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Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia

#21

Post by dnautics »

munin wrote: post #18
dnautics wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the difficulty with 'basic research with seemingly no value' (a good example is the fourier transform, which at the time was seen as a mathematical curiosity) - is that it lacks accountability. How do you make sure that the academe that is selling their project as 'basic research' isn't just pulling a fast one on you and sucking your funds to tickle their intellectual jollies? This problem is even worse when you take…

> How do you make sure that the academe that is selling their project as 'basic research' isn't just pulling a fast one on you and sucking your funds to tickle their intellectual jollies? what's the difference? would you want to fund a Feynman to tickle his intellectual jollies?

yes. But I would not want someone to force me to fund Feynman to tickle his intellectual jollies. Moreover, your example has survivorship bias. There are plenty of completely rediculous people you probably would'nt want to fund. For me, one such person is Thomas Cavalier-Smith.

Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia

#22

Post by nickthemagicman »

It's interesting to think though, that government funding has produced nearly every single form of medicine we have, it funded einstein, it was indirectly responsible for the internet.

The problem is that you have to pay a bunch of parasites to support the few who are actually advancing the human race.

Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia

#23

Post by irollboozers »

3 out of 6 of Microryza's current team are graduate school dropouts. Technically, you could add 1.5 more (Ethan Perlstein left academia, I never started), so 4.5 out of 6.

We've all been there. I think you have to either be purposely oblivious or one of the extremely lucky ones blessed with a true research environment, but it is impossible for the new generation of scientists to not see the writing on the wall. Every single student is suffering from the symptoms, yet very few are doing things to change it.

One note, echoing the original author - for myself personally, the letters 'PhD' no longer carry the same meaning anymore. If anything, it's become an additional signal that you once bought into a system that is selling you short. I still respect those who have PhD's, but only for what it once meant, not for what it means now.

Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia

#24

Post by dnautics »

auggierose wrote: post #20

I have worked at EPFL for a short time as as post-doc, and it really is a great school. Its Ph.D. students are excellent, and so what he says has to be taken seriously. Personally, I have come to the conclusion that much of how Academia works today is inevitable. How many people are truly excellent in any job? Always only a small percentage. Let's say that in Academia the percentage is especially high, as high as 20%…

what happens to that percentage when a country decides that it doesn't have enough STEM people and forces people down an educational pipeline. And compromises its educational integrity in the process?

Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia

#25

Post by ironparlance »

There is not a lot of funding for "basic" research any more. Those dollars are now usually sucked up by the most ruthless researchers that have risen to the top of the power pyramid and sit there until they die or retire.

Young researchers coming up through the ranks have very few opportunities to pursue the basic research that may take ten or more years to manifest a rich result. They must serve their mentor's interest through publishing in his/her area, then hopefully land an adjunct position where this process is repeated for the Department/School, then after 12-20 years in academia they may get tenure and have a shot at some freedom if they aren't completely used up and corrupted. At that point it is much easier to just fall back into the patterns of abuse they endured except now it is they abusing their students.

Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia

#27

Post by foobarbazqux »

rayiner wrote: post #3

I wonder why we impart onto young people such an idealism about science only to have to crush it when they get older and must be informed that science, like everything else, is a business.

The optimistic answer is that we pass on to our children what we wish were true for us, hoping that this time it will be different.

The pessimistic answer is that idealists make very hard workers, such that by the time they become cynics they've already locked themselves into a career path and it's hard to get out of it.

It seems the problem we have with science being a business is the belief that money is fundamentally corrupting. I think that only applies to mismanaged money; it can also be seen as fundamentally enabling.

Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia

#28

Post by dnautics »

irollboozers wrote: post #23

3 out of 6 of Microryza's current team are graduate school dropouts. Technically, you could add 1.5 more (Ethan Perlstein left academia, I never started), so 4.5 out of 6. We've all been there. I think you have to either be purposely oblivious or one of the extremely lucky ones blessed with a true research environment, but it is impossible for the new generation of scientists to not see the writing on the wall. Every…

while a PhD doesn't carry that much cachet anymore, doesn't that make 'PhD dropout' even worse? Isn't the impression then, that 'You couldn't finish even the lowered standards for the PhD' or 'You couldn't finish what you started' or 'You had the poor judgement to bite off something you couldn't handle'? I suppose the last isn't so bad given that the age that most Americans start grad school is just over 22

Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia

#29

Post by youredelightful »

dnautics wrote: post #24
auggierose wrote: post #20

I have worked at EPFL for a short time as as post-doc, and it really is a great school. Its Ph.D. students are excellent, and so what he says has to be taken seriously. Personally, I have come to the conclusion that much of how Academia works today is inevitable. How many people are truly excellent in any job? Always only a small percentage. Let's say that in Academia the percentage is especially high, as high as 20%…

what happens to that percentage when a country decides that it doesn't have enough STEM people and forces people down an educational pipeline. And compromises its educational integrity in the process?

Plaques in Highschool bathrooms commemorating where Linus Torvalds once went poo poo.

Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia

#30

Post by irollboozers »

dnautics wrote: post #28
irollboozers wrote: post #23

3 out of 6 of Microryza's current team are graduate school dropouts. Technically, you could add 1.5 more (Ethan Perlstein left academia, I never started), so 4.5 out of 6. We've all been there. I think you have to either be purposely oblivious or one of the extremely lucky ones blessed with a true research environment, but it is impossible for the new generation of scientists to not see the writing on the wall. Every…

while a PhD doesn't carry that much cachet anymore, doesn't that make 'PhD dropout' even worse? Isn't the impression then, that 'You couldn't finish even the lowered standards for the PhD' or 'You couldn't finish what you started' or 'You had the poor judgement to bite off something you couldn't handle'? I suppose the last isn't so bad given that the age that most Americans start grad school is just over 22

I know this sounds like rationalization, but I think we see it more like, "If we're doomed to suffer in a system where everyone is suffering, why not work to try to improve it and fix the problem instead?"

In other words, if we weren't doing this, we would all be in grad school/academia getting PhD's and doing research anyways. This is more a reflection that we're giving up that opportunity in an effort to pay it forward. I would rather 'PhD' to mean something again than to have something that is meaningless.

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