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

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

#111

Post by alisonkisk »

cal5k wrote: post #72
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…

Maybe we don't need all those PhDs, and we should stop funnelling public money into producing an excess supply of them?

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.

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

#112

Post by dotdi »

I have a degree in Molecular Biology but I've switched careers very specifically because of what is described in this article: you roll a die, it shows the wrong number and now your whole career is in jeopardy.

I just decided that it was not worth putting in years of 80 hour weeks into a system where at some point you can just "disappear" due to reasons very much out of your control.

Just writing these paragraphs reminds me how f****** broken academia is.

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

#113

Post by leesalminen »

renewiltord wrote: post #44
tensor wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's okay. I understand why you need to apply a near zero multiplier on what I told you but I'm unwilling to get any family member blackballed over outing anyone. Your epistemological strategy is correct. And for all I know you are more correct. After all, given any random arrangement of points there will be clusters. And assuming you draw circles randomly, some circles will coincidentally appear full of points. Bu…

FWIW, I believe your anecdote. It doesn’t mean it happens everywhere all the time. You’re posting with your real name and I can’t think of why you’d come to HN to lie about it. I value reading about personal experiences on HN.

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

#114

Post by alpineidyll3 »

laretluval wrote: post #109
alpineidyll3 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grant system completely compromises most faculty'$ ability to do anything with their decades of training besides sell themselves. Especially young faculty during their most productive years. The only way to turn this around is to change the way we give credit for scientific achievements, and stop rewarding "I wrote the grant" With authorships. (Im ex faculty)

> stop rewarding "I wrote the grant" With authorships. How could this work? If you have more grant money you have more resources to write papers.

Many faculty getting the most funding are never involved in writing the papers attributed to them. (Source: years spent at the top five universities and my own faculty experience)

Would work simply: fund students directly. If faculty contribute training or ideas students can grant authorship. Faculty/postdocs still peer review papers.

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

#115

Post by timr »

alpineidyll3 wrote: post #69
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.

The grant system completely compromises most faculty'$ ability to do anything with their decades of training besides sell themselves. Especially young faculty during their most productive years. The only way to turn this around is to change the way we give credit for scientific achievements, and stop rewarding "I wrote the grant" With authorships. (Im ex faculty)

> 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 same skills needed for success as a professor had a much higher expected value elsewhere. In academia or otherwise, disproportionate success comes to those who combine ability with self-promotion. The people who put their heads down and focus on obscure problems will always be at the mercy of the winds.

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

#116

Post by SCUSKU »

lumost wrote: post #98
alpineidyll3 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grant system completely compromises most faculty'$ ability to do anything with their decades of training besides sell themselves. Especially young faculty during their most productive years. The only way to turn this around is to change the way we give credit for scientific achievements, and stop rewarding "I wrote the grant" With authorships. (Im ex faculty)

I wonder how much of the rise of modern "pop-sci" as a genre in writing, film, and tv is due to the current academic incentives. If you're so good at selling yourself and field why not take the pitch directly to a paying audience rather than grant committees?

While at first I balked at this idea, I suppose what you're proposing is crowdsourcing academic research funding. Naturally, the first thing that comes to mind is how accountability can be managed. One of the major pitfalls of the crowdfunding model seems to be that the fundraisers can make like bandits with the money, with seemingly little recourse, or incentive for the crowd.

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

#117

Post by phobosanomaly »

idrios wrote: post #51
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.

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…

It's unfortunate to see people disadvantaged by pursuing a truly difficult major.

A 2.97 in bioengineering could represent someone who simply took more challenging courses, and got lower grades because the courses were truly difficult.

A straight bio major might have a 3.8, but never had to work through a year-long Pchem sequence, instead padding with softer, more grade-inflated courses.

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

#118

Post by phobosanomaly »

alisonkisk wrote: post #111
cal5k wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we don't need all those PhDs, and we should stop funnelling public money into producing an excess supply of them?

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.

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

#119

Post by josephg »

timr wrote: post #115
alpineidyll3 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grant system completely compromises most faculty'$ ability to do anything with their decades of training besides sell themselves. Especially young faculty during their most productive years. The only way to turn this around is to change the way we give credit for scientific achievements, and stop rewarding "I wrote the grant" With authorships. (Im ex faculty)

> 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.

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

#120

Post by phobosanomaly »

ampdepolymerase wrote: post #60
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…

The issue is that there are too many barriers to commercialisation and the current stakeholders have too much power. The profitable fields like medicine strictly limit the number of people accepted (the official explanation is that there aren't enough residencies, the unspoken reason is that the American Medical Association wants to keep salaries up) and FDA drug approval laws err on the side of caution; better to ha…

There's this loop in medical education where people come into it with lofty goals, but are then hit with $240k of tuition (excluding living expenses). They then take out loans on that, and then have to pay them back. So, when people talk about cutting salaries, there are all these new doctors that are going 'wait a minute, by this point I'm $300k (just on postgraduate training) in the hole after 4-years of hellish training, and I have to pay that back.'

If we were able to take some of the debt burden out of medical education, you'd have people still lining up out the door to go to med school, they'd probably be willing to take lower salaries, and work in more underserved areas.

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