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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

#111

Post by dnautics »

LordHumungous wrote: post #76
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? Spoken like a true engineer

I'm actually in the sciences. I've seen the stupid ideas that PIs have proposed in the name of "basic sciece" and the grad students and postdocs they have burned in the process.

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

#112

Post by djillionsmix »

timr wrote: post #88
bithive123 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this a lot with new programmers that come to work for us. Many of them understandably think that some of our practices are obviously wrong and should be changed, but few of them figure out how to be effective in spite of the obvious correctness of their opinions.

Yep, agreed. It's a youthful affliction, and it isn't specific to PhD programs. Time either beats it out of you, or you become this very pathetic, unfortunate sort of character as you get older. There are few things sadder than adults who blame the world for being insufficient for their needs.

Well that was an uninspired display of passive-aggressive ad hominem and cliche.

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

#113

Post by light3 »

dnautics wrote: post #110
light3 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the provision of public goods are a moral choice, if anything it is an economic choice, where its subsidy is justified by two things: the benefit of the public good outweigh its costs, the general public will not sufficiently fund public goods out of their free will. The degree of benefit for the future is sometimes not measurable, however if the past is any indication than it has definitely provided ma…

>the general public will not sufficiently fund public goods out of their free will. May I remind you: >I'm going to anticipate your answer: because they're too selfish. But is there any reason to believe that our elected officials are any less selfish? Look at the narcissistic idiots we elect - and ask, are these the people whom you really want holding the purse strings? >The degree of benefit for the future is somet…

I agree with you that governments can be very suboptimal, but that doesn't diminish the existence or usefulness research as a public good. Some research can not be readily commercialised, but nevertheless form basic building blocks for other innovation, in such cases government funding is crucial.

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

#114

Post by pseut »

singingfish wrote: post #26

I agree. (source: at similar stage of PhD to original author. Trying to get to the end myself though).

Try not to agree too vigorously... regardless of how valid the author's points are, the end of grad school is usually the most stressful and depressing part (possibly of your career), especially until you get a job lined up.

You're almost done.

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

#115

Post by gradstudent »

dnautics wrote: post #106
light3 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See definition of public good(economics): In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others.[1] Examples of public goods include fresh air, knowledge, lighthouses, national defense, flood control systems and street lighting. Public goods that are availabl…

your statement is an existence statement. Yes, public goods exist. In some cases government regulation of public goods against abuse is reasonable e.g. "clean air". But your statement doesn't give moral justification for government subsidy of public goods. Let's put it in really stark terms. I want to build a lighthouse. Because it's a public good; it will keep ships in the ocean safe. Is it morally justified for me…

Quit being such an ultra-capitalist arse. The funding of public goods is not and should not be an opt-in system. You contribute whether you like it or not because that's in the best collective interest.

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

#116

Post by bjterry »

gajomi wrote: post #8

Can someone please change `wity' to `with' in the title? This critique is well written and was interesting for me to read, having just finished my PhD a few months ago. I can relate to a number of the issues he raised. However, I must take issue with his point (8). While I think it certainly is important to make sure that academics contribute back to larger society in some capacity, I think it is a bit premature to c…

I had a different but related reaction to point 8 specifically. He seems to imply (although it's not totally clear since he treats the academy as a single unit) that people who have come up with theory should turn their individual attention to practical applications after it's well-developed. But it may be that people who are good at theory simply aren't good at applications. It could be better if once something was ready for practical applications, those theory-people went and worked on developing theory in a different area, rather than trying to become applied. If we aren't seeing enough practical application, perhaps it's because we aren't rewarding application sufficiently (seems unlikely), or people aren't being rewarded sufficiently for practical applications of other people's theories (seems possible?), so we have less appliers than is optimal.

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

#117

Post by auctiontheory »

dnautics wrote: post #58
sanderjd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I supposed to know why you have a problem with Thomas Cavalier-Smith, or is that just a non-sequitur?

no, just that I have a problem with him. But if you are curious: so much wasted effort. I am not a fan of siloing sciences, but TCS puts into stark perspective Rutherford's epithet "All science is either physics or stamp collecting" - and what TCS has done is stamp collecting at its worst. Over, and over again.

Physics, physics ... isn't that just a branch of applied math?

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

#118

Post by auctiontheory »

nilkn wrote: post #35
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.

It may just be an artifact of the expanding population. It wasn't too long ago that many young people also harbored an idealism about working for big companies: go to college, get a nearly guaranteed job at a corporation, work there for 25-30 years, retire with a pension. But we all know that each of these steps is less guaranteed today than it was for the previous generation, sometimes significantly so. It's the sam…

A similar job today would likely only go to a graduate of Harvard Business School, Wharton, or something similar.

Actually that's not true at all. High-performing salespeople in tech (and other industries) are extremely well-paid, and tend not to have fancy degrees.

Sales is still a career in which hustle and results are valued over book smarts, and there is no branch of a company that is "closer to revenue" than sales.

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

#119

Post by dnautics »

light3 wrote: post #113
dnautics wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the general public will not sufficiently fund public goods out of their free will. May I remind you: >I'm going to anticipate your answer: because they're too selfish. But is there any reason to believe that our elected officials are any less selfish? Look at the narcissistic idiots we elect - and ask, are these the people whom you really want holding the purse strings? >The degree of benefit for the future is somet…

I agree with you that governments can be very suboptimal, but that doesn't diminish the existence or usefulness research as a public good. Some research can not be readily commercialised, but nevertheless form basic building blocks for other innovation, in such cases government funding is crucial.

>Some research can not be readily commercialised, but nevertheless form basic building blocks for other innovation, in such cases government funding is crucial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_D._Mitchell

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

#120

Post by dnautics »

gradstudent wrote: post #115
dnautics wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your statement is an existence statement. Yes, public goods exist. In some cases government regulation of public goods against abuse is reasonable e.g. "clean air". But your statement doesn't give moral justification for government subsidy of public goods. Let's put it in really stark terms. I want to build a lighthouse. Because it's a public good; it will keep ships in the ocean safe. Is it morally justified for me…

Quit being such an ultra-capitalist arse. The funding of public goods is not and should not be an opt-in system. You contribute whether you like it or not because that's in the best collective interest.

That's all fine and good until "we" decide that the "best collective interest" is to defund gradstudent's research in favor of something else more politically expedient. Then gradstudent throws a hissyfit because the collective interest is not his interest. Who's the selfish one then?
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