Seems to me (I'm no expert in science history) that most of the huge breakthroughs came before the age of Official Science, i.e. Science(TM) being run through bureaucratic grant administrations in publicly-funded research universities (or 'private' ones with public money). Everything from the steam engine to Tesla's heroics happened while tinkering and playing. Granted, the game may have changed due to external circumstances, but we may yet want to look at whether the huge budgets of these departments are justified JUST BECAUSE SCIENCEEE. Do we want to support a bureaucratic process called 'Science' or actual production of interesting and/or useful results about the world?
An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia
151–160 of 170 posts
Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia
#152High-level scientific journals, when it comes down to it, really aren't that different from gossip magazines or HuffPo. Yes, worthier subject matter for sure, but in the end their judgements on publishing come down to virality and eyeballs.
Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia
#153This student makes some excellent points, and it's a bit scary how some things reinforce each other. Some journals, Nature being the most notable, chase impact factor above all else. The only thing they truly care about is that the papers they publish get cited. This means highly original work, which frequently doesn't get cited much for a long time, is less desirable than a turn-the-crank paper from a respected name…
There is some merit in the rant but it suffers from myopia, probably owing to the author's inexperience and subsequent lack of understanding how science really works. Here's the secret: it is quite possible to get a permanent position with a reasonable teaching load at a reasonable university without lots of funding and without having to produce large numbers of publications in high-profile conferences/journals. Inde…
I guess what stops most people from pursuing that road is the risk that, after "a decade or two", it turns out that your intuitions were wrong and you've got very little to show for the years of toiling. It's essentially a gamble on your life.
Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia
#154I 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…
I don't think $50k back in 1960 bought you as much as $400k buys you today. Keep in mind how cheap many products and services have gotten due to automation, globalization, and technological advancements. Comparing cost of living in 1960 to cost of living in 2013 as if it's comparing apples to apples is a mistake.
Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
A good friend of me said: anything that is science is just a special case of either mathematics or physics (and anything that does not satisfy this criterion is bullshit or rambling on and on; but surely not science).
Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia
#156I have my PhD, and this is the standard angst that many aspiring students face. There's a reason we have the term "ABD" for All But Dissertation. If he got that far into grad school without realizing that a Professor is an entrepreneur - hiring employees (grad students) to produce his product (knowledge) which he sells to customers (government and industry) through sales and marketing (conferences and papers) - then…
Exactly. My brother cut short his PhD and got a M.S. when he realized the life of a professor was basically being a manager with employees that were harder to fire. If he wanted to be a manager, he'd have gotten an MBA.
Yes; it leads to unexpected consequences. The worst students are the ones the that the professor has the most incentive to graduate. So paradoxically the better you are, the less likely you are to be done quickly.
Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia
#157I think this student misunderstood what a PhD is about. They sound disenchanted with the reality of doing a PhD.
The purpose of a PhD is to provide training in how to do research; most PhD students do not change the world or even make a large contribution to a research area - that's not the point. There are standard texts about PhDs that explain this, and most supervisors recommend students read a few of those books at the beginning of their PhD.
As someone who has worked in both academic and industry, I can assure you that academia has not literally become a business, that academics still have great freedom, and that almost every academic I have ever met works hard and is motivated primarily by the goal of doing great work.
Contrary to the article, most significant research is not done by PhD students - hardly surprising - it is done by Research Associates and Research Fellows, under the supervision of professors and lecturers. That's in the UK at least, and job titles vary in other countries.
I find the anti-academia slant in tech circles to be quite strange. Many people think academia is "out of touch", but there is a lot of collaborative work between academia and industry, involving nearly all the large tech companies. I've never heard academics in Computer Science expressing any animosity towards those working in industry. It's strange, because academia has historically been and continues to be incredibly important in the tech industry; I'd like to see more collaboration and less of a schism.
Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia
#158This student makes some excellent points, and it's a bit scary how some things reinforce each other. Some journals, Nature being the most notable, chase impact factor above all else. The only thing they truly care about is that the papers they publish get cited. This means highly original work, which frequently doesn't get cited much for a long time, is less desirable than a turn-the-crank paper from a respected name…
There is some merit in the rant but it suffers from myopia, probably owing to the author's inexperience and subsequent lack of understanding how science really works. Here's the secret: it is quite possible to get a permanent position with a reasonable teaching load at a reasonable university without lots of funding and without having to produce large numbers of publications in high-profile conferences/journals. Inde…
At least in the UK I know there's a fair amount of rating academic staff by research grants they have received, which hurts anyone doing any long-term work with all the costs at the beginning or anyone doing generally low-cost research.
Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia
#159I agree with everything said in this post. In our lab for example all grad students were required to present at the conferences, yet we had to pay out of our pocket to attend,to register, travel, etc. Our lab did some fair amount of field work but to get to the site we had to use our own car and pay for gas. Our adviser got a grant for this project, yet we had to pay out of our own pocket. No one dared to say anything because few did and got kicked out of the program.
Re: An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
All of us. The purpose of government is to marshal these selfish urges such that we benefit as a whole. Whether or not that happens is a political problem. That the political system can be captured by politically expedient interests is a political problem. Of course gradstudent should throw a hissyfit, if it is in their interest - would you expect anything less?
"The purpose of government is to marshal these selfish urges such that we benefit as a whole."
I think a lot of people think that's what government should do, but you should really think hard about why that's a bad idea. Who is "we"? Who gets to really decide what is "benefit"? Who gets to decide what is "selfish"? And how can I be that person so that I can screw over gradstudent, and bring about benefits, which, oh by the way, also REALLY benefit my friends and family? Some animals are just.... More equal than others.