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“This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”

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Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”

#131

Post by aflyax »

return0 wrote: post #24
plg wrote: post #2

"I found scientists to be more preoccupied by their own survival in a very competitive research environment than by the development of a true understanding of the world." I have found this as well. However it's important to remember that before one can do good work, one has to find funding for the good work. It's a complex problem.

They can go work elsewhere. Part of the problem is that academic pipelines are clogged with too many PhDs who are not motivated by scientific curiosity.

Not pursuing a project that’s too risky, is not using the latest tools, and might not get you published in Cell/Science/Nature is all about scientific curiosity. Please. Such b/s.

Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”

#132

Post by pfooti »

FWIW, I have a PhD and spent five years as an assistant professor. I then went on to take a different job as a lecturer for a few years before leaving academia completely. The general complaint JF raised rings true. In my field (learning sciences), there was a TON of jank publications. The majority of the published work still is stuff that exists solely to increment the author's publication count. The term "least publishable unit" was used unironically.

The focus is flawed. There is still a lot of good work being done in the system, but that work is really only 10% of the work that is done. I had to choose between artificially inflating my pub count and not making tenure. In the end, I decided to walk away - I personally don't have the kind of perseverance necessary for that.

Of course, I now make significantly more money and am actually appreciated by my colleagues (rather than viewed as competition), and still get to contribute real work in the field in a private sector nonprofit instead. And I get to program too (in LS at least it was all publications, the software you created didnt count for anything.)

Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”

#133

Post by pcrh »

jashephe wrote: post #126
pcrh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are only 3 authors on the Nat. Neurosci. paper, so he likely spent a large amount of his time working on this project. So it would be a bit unfair to compare his output in that lab to that of the first author of the same paper. Metrics are fine and all, but rarely tell the full picture. Not that I know what the full picture really looks like in this case...

The Nat. Neurosci. paper lists author contributions at the bottom (Gariépy is J.F.G). > S.W.C.C and M.L.P. designed the research and wrote the paper. S.W.C.C. and J.F.G. performed the research and S.W.C.C analyzed the data.

Quite. He performed the research, but it doesn't indicate whether he spent 2 years doing mostly this, or did just one of the experiments over a few weeks... Similarly for the first author.

Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”

#134

Post by dstyrb »

nkurz wrote: post #74
adminprof wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The misinformation about adjuncts is pretty widespread. Adjuncts have indeed been hired way more at teaching colleges and for-profit colleges. But research universities haven't really changed their hiring tendencies much, if at all. It's just that there are a lot more non-R1 universities now that statistically, a higher % of new instructors are adjuncts. Nearly everyone I know that graduated with a PhD from an R1 uni…

Nearly everyone I know that graduated with a PhD from an R1 universities Would these people perhaps be clustered in a particular field? I'd guess that things are very different depending on the percentage of PhD's in a field who go into academia versus industry. For example, the academic job market for Astronomy is very different than CS, because there are many more non-academic options for CS graduates. I think even…

In astronomy I've always heard the rule of 10s.

10% of astronomers get the PhD, 10% of the PhDs get post docs, 10% of post docs get tenure.

And tenure in 0-2 years? That's impossible outside of China or India or the Soviet bloc. I think the average amount of time an Astronomer spends in post-docs is 9-12 years.

Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”

#135

Post by dstyrb »

mcguire wrote: post #107
nkurz wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly everyone I know that graduated with a PhD from an R1 universities Would these people perhaps be clustered in a particular field? I'd guess that things are very different depending on the percentage of PhD's in a field who go into academia versus industry. For example, the academic job market for Astronomy is very different than CS, because there are many more non-academic options for CS graduates. I think even…

Not necessarily a good example. Astronomy has that weird, assassination-based promotion system.

Nice Tycho Brahe reference.

Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”

#136

Post by mangamadaiyan »

I almost did a Ph.D.

Luckily, my prof and I didn't get along too well, and I escaped with just a Master's degree.

To this day, my prof doesn't list me in his page (all other students before and after me are listed, and the lone publication I have with him is listed too).

Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”

#137

Post by mangamadaiyan »

dstyrb wrote: post #134
nkurz wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly everyone I know that graduated with a PhD from an R1 universities Would these people perhaps be clustered in a particular field? I'd guess that things are very different depending on the percentage of PhD's in a field who go into academia versus industry. For example, the academic job market for Astronomy is very different than CS, because there are many more non-academic options for CS graduates. I think even…

In astronomy I've always heard the rule of 10s. 10% of astronomers get the PhD, 10% of the PhDs get post docs, 10% of post docs get tenure. And tenure in 0-2 years? That's impossible outside of China or India or the Soviet bloc. I think the average amount of time an Astronomer spends in post-docs is 9-12 years.

AFAIK, tenure in 0-2 years is difficult even in India.

Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”

#138

Post by akulbe »

My biggest concern with this is that it devalues education even further.

Many potential/current/former students are questioning the value of higher education.

If you cannot trust the researchers, then how can anything be trusted? If it's just one big good-old-boy system, what's the point?

Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”

#139

Post by JFGariepy »

calibraxis wrote: post #115
toomim wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love new information, but your narrative conflicts with the existing facts: - He is not bitter - He did not leave because of failure Now it appears you aren't listening to me, because I've had to write this twice.

Interesting how "bitter" is important. Is it academia's codeword for unprofessionalism? A claim that someone lacks objectivity because their meatbody generated emotion along with reason? (Was Newton any less of a scientist for often being "bitter"?)

Perhaps I may bring some enlightenment here, I'm JF, the guy who wrote the article, and I do have psychic access to my own mind.

Everything is true in what both of you are saying. The original claim that my postdoc was ending anyway is true. But I did not fail to get enough publications to continue. I would have had opportunities to be employed and finish many more papers (in fact I was begged to choose to do so), but refused.

The fact that I have decided to synchronize my leave of academia with the ending of my postdoc, however, does not change what I express on my Facebook post, which was genuine. I am not bitter and I do not consider myself an unsuccessful scientist at all. In my country and in many universities, I see people being hired at a professor position with a C.V. much less populated than mine; so the option was certainly not out. On top of it, if I hadn't had the intent to leave, I certainly could have used my data in the last year to get anywhere from 1 to 4 more publications. I have handed all my data to students in the lab and chose to refuse to continue working on it despite a request from my PI (I actually made a joke and said that I could continue academia if he paid me $50,000 per month).

None of you are wrong; one just has to be careful with interpretations. Thanks for the person who defended the actual reading of my text rather than presumptuous extrapolations.

Re: “This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University”

#140

Post by JoeAltmaier »

adminprof wrote: post #64
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a simple problem; that three-sentence description was a pretty good start. The problem is made harder by the near-extinction of tenure-track positions. Colleges are using adjuct-profressors exclusively now, because they are cheap, plentiful and hungry. The search for knowledge has turned into a mill to train people and get a paycheck.

The misinformation about adjuncts is pretty widespread. Adjuncts have indeed been hired way more at teaching colleges and for-profit colleges. But research universities haven't really changed their hiring tendencies much, if at all. It's just that there are a lot more non-R1 universities now that statistically, a higher % of new instructors are adjuncts. Nearly everyone I know that graduated with a PhD from an R1 uni…

For years fulltime profs number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_State...
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