131–140 of 163 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its really dependent on the department, but yeah, the MS is now the HS degree for a lot of places. Especially in Engineering. Good luck trying to get hired with only a BS. Credential creep is real. More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credentialism_and_educational_...
In CS, a Bachelors is enough for most (if not all) jobs.
I find it vaguely amusing and ironic that he cites rationalwiki on the gish gallop, given that my impression is they do this themselves a bunch. (Note that running a gish gallop doesn't mean you're wrong , it just means you're intellectually dishonest.) (I try not to pay too much attention to them, and I'm not super interested in refuting their bullshit, so this comment is going to be pretty unsatisfying. Sorry.)
I haven't read much on rationalwiki, but nothing I did struck me as gish gallop. They might have a lot of angles on attack on some bunk concept, but they expand upon all of them.
I heard a well known neuroscientist suggest that studies should be required to be replicated by at least another lab before being published/ established. That may sound impractical for some fields, but especially in biology/neuroscience most projects are small enough to make this feasible. Is it worth the money? I would say absolutely, not only for the validation of the science, but for the shift in culture, to final…
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"I see an entire civilization confused by a ubiquous mass communication tool which they invented to do exactly the opposite: enlight them." There was never a stream of pure, refined truth available, that just somehow lacked a distribution method. All there ever was was a confusing mixture of an uncountable varieties of different possibilities, theories, and facts of varying veracity. Now you can have more direct acce…
> There was never a stream of pure, refined truth availablem, that just somehow lacked a distribution method Academic educational programs have exactly been the source-without-a-scalable-distribution-method for at least the past century. You're unlikely to find a treatment of mathematics or physics or even Computer Science that is as well-curated, free of coercive bias, and well-presented as it often is in the underg…
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That is nearly the opposite of what the PhD was designed to do. Modern academic training comes out of the church and the old guilds of middle Europe and is still in use today in many fields (chefs and plumbers to name a few). The Bachelor's degree is loosely similar to an apprentice's role. The young boy (they were almost exclusively male) worked in a shop or with a priest for some time. He learned the trade, the too…
The problem is that nobody's doing replication work in undergrad, either, nor does it happen in Master's programs. I do think it makes sense to stick with the PhD meaning you're a world class expert in some area, but if so then we need to adjust our expectations for what Master's level work means in the sciences. Right now it seems to just represent a hurdle you need to whiz past on your way to the PhD.
The problem is that grade inflation means the majority of students will fall short of these goalposts. I agree with your assessment that undergrad degrees represent hurdles, regardless of whether a student is planning to stay in academia or not.
My experience with getting a Masters degree was that it was really tough work that required my full dedication for two years. But I had a world-class scientist as an advisor breathing down my neck the whole time and expecting results, and my experience doesn't seem to match that of many other MScs I know. Some departments seem to be "degree factories"; it takes an unreasonable amount of effort to follow up students in the classical "apprenticeship" tradition described by GP. It would be very strange if every department at every university managed this level of dedication, with student numbers being what they are.
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Once it has become clear that someone is a "Lord Voldemort", it seems to me there's little value in continued careful consideration of their positions. At that point, if it's possible, why not discredit them and allow the rest of the world to start ignoring them and spend time on more promising endeavours?
"Discrediting" only works on some people. If it was universally applicable then Donald Trump wouldn't be the leading Republican candidate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is nearly the opposite of what the PhD was designed to do. Modern academic training comes out of the church and the old guilds of middle Europe and is still in use today in many fields (chefs and plumbers to name a few). The Bachelor's degree is loosely similar to an apprentice's role. The young boy (they were almost exclusively male) worked in a shop or with a priest for some time. He learned the trade, the too…
The problem is that nobody's doing replication work in undergrad, either, nor does it happen in Master's programs. I do think it makes sense to stick with the PhD meaning you're a world class expert in some area, but if so then we need to adjust our expectations for what Master's level work means in the sciences. Right now it seems to just represent a hurdle you need to whiz past on your way to the PhD.
The job market right now in the US forces grad students to attempt innovative research with remarkable conclusions. As a consequence, everyone's trying to prove more outlandish things while few are bothering with replications. If the field were sane, you would train all the apprentices on replication studies. Once they demonstrated dispassionate expertise with the tools, only then would they be allowed to try to use…
That is nearly the opposite of what the PhD was designed to do. Modern academic training comes out of the church and the old guilds of middle Europe and is still in use today in many fields (chefs and plumbers to name a few). The Bachelor's degree is loosely similar to an apprentice's role. The young boy (they were almost exclusively male) worked in a shop or with a priest for some time. He learned the trade, the too…
However, PHD students on average are very far from world class. And in just about every case they are simply looking at a problem so unimportant that nobody considered it before, and most likely nobody will ever look at again.
It's almost always a waste of time for both the student and everyone else involved.
PS: There are plenty of counter examples where PHD research happened to be valuable, but that's a tiny minority of cases.
Instead of a sisyphean refutation of every attack, wouldn't a better strategy be to research and prove the attacker's conflict of interests (and thus discredit them)?
Best way to deal with biased bullshit is open discussion where the biased parties make their arguments, and others evaluate them on quality and completeness. Competition on who is better at hiding biases and conflicts of interest, as opposed to who has the strongest argument, is not the best way at getting at the truth.
Now, knowingly and repeatedly making the same questionable arguments without even mentioning criticism, is quite another matter and should indeed count against one's reputation. Too bad we so often see all sides guilty of that one :(
I find it vaguely amusing and ironic that he cites rationalwiki on the gish gallop, given that my impression is they do this themselves a bunch. (Note that running a gish gallop doesn't mean you're wrong , it just means you're intellectually dishonest.) (I try not to pay too much attention to them, and I'm not super interested in refuting their bullshit, so this comment is going to be pretty unsatisfying. Sorry.)