Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would have a hard time swallowing the argument that we pay scientists too much, or that society respects them too much. A distant observer might think this could be the case since, from their perspective, what they see as "scientists" are celebrated professors, showered with job stability, upper-middle-class incomes and book deals. But those lucky sods are vastly outnumbered by postdocs and tenure-track faculty, wh…
I won't deny the reality of modern day science worker. But the fact of they are paid/respected at minimum does not justify their motivation. Just like a typical minimum wage worker is not doing the work out of pleasure, a typical postdoc is not pursuing a career of pure knowledge. Of course there are some component in it, but from what I see, they are pursuing a career -- a tenure as you put it, an end result that is…
Re: 80% of current drug applications in China failed to meet analysis requirements
#41Ok, the vision of scientists as an ascetic class only appealing to the dyed-in-the-wool seekers of knowledge has some appeal. But, there's a problem there, too- sure, Einstein would still have published his breakthroughs, but many of the thousands of researchers whose works were the basis for his wouldn't have. The pace of scientific progress we're accustomed to now is the product of the work of thousands upon thousands of scientists; the contribution of celebrated geniuses like Einstein are dramatic but represent a rounding error compared to the whole rate of progress. We need a way to recruit and retain the rank-and-file ordinary-human researchers as well, and that requires compensation somewhat proportional to the effort they're putting in.