6 ms·

> We need big thinkers We need some, but there aren't anywhere near enough big-thinking jobs for all these PhDs. > The success of science and technology will

by jmmcd 11y ago

> We need big thinkers We need some, but there aren't anywhere near enough big-thinking jobs for all these PhDs. > The success of science and technology will always lead to new ethical dilemmas. How do you spot them and try to work with society before they become problems? A better appreciation of ethics is likely to address what has become an epidemic of retractions in the scientific literature. All the recent retractions have nothing to do with scientists being unaware of ethical dilemmas raised by their work. They're to do with perverse incentives, p-hacking, and occasionally deliberate dishonesty.

Fede_V 11y ago
Yeah, pretty much exactly this. In the abstract, I fully support teaching science PhDs more about Quine, Russell, Popper, Carnap - they are all great thinkers who had very intelligent ideas. In practice, PhDs at top tier institutions are far too concerned with the day to day rat race that the history of ideas is not likely to be a serious priority. As long as the competition for stable positions will remain so fierce, and the criteria for which candidates are judged will remain so narrow, the problems are likely to be far more prosaic than those raised by analytical philosophers.
- jamesrcole 11y ago
  > In practice, ... You're arguing that what happens to be the case now is how it should be. Do you think this is the best way for it to be, and if so, why?
  - Fede_V 11y ago
    Absolutely no. However, as the parent comment pointed out, the root problem is the broken incentives - the lack of philosophical sophistication of scientists is at best a 3rd order term.
- cryoshon 11y ago
  The last academic shop I was at had an Eritrean biostatistician around who was the only actual philosopher of science in the entire troupe. He understood the different perspectives of epistemology as well as statistical analysis, and was a tremendous asset in planning new studies for the most high impact data... unfortunately, to many of the postdocs and PIs, he was just an annoyance, because they refused to accept that their studies were poorly constructed and their data was less than rigorous.
emanuelev 11y ago
I quite agree that the post PhD job market is kind of challenging as there are few companies tackling big questions. However, if you forget the job market, the argument the guy is making is absolutely spot on. There's a solid trend in academia that is "publish early, publish fast". Although one might argue that it actually makes sense (career-wise or whatever), it is intrinsic in such a system to penalise pursuing big, risky ideas. Considering that the PhD (and the few years after) are the most productive in a researcher's life, it is a shame that students are not actively encouraged to think bigger.
- rhaps0dy 11y ago
  >the PhD (and the few years after) are the most productive in a researcher's life Source? I'm curious.
  - 4ad 11y ago
    Not a "real" study, but it appears to be true: https://youtu.be/Mpsc-BxAiHs?t=1537 https://youtu.be/Mpsc-BxAiHs?t=1537
    - dagw 11y ago
      It's a common view, but a number of studies seem to contradict of at least question this: http://openaccessweek.org/profiles/blogs/age-amp-science-do-scientists-make-their-best-discoveries-during http://openaccessweek.org/profiles/blogs/age-amp-science-do-... "A study in 2002 examined 50 Nobel prize winners from each of the three prizes for physics, chemistry and medicine. This study recorded the age of the scientists when they had done the work that was rewarded with the prize and found that the centre points for age were: physics, 34; chemistry, 37; medicine, 40 (Marchetti C, 2002.) A study published in 1993 investigated a similar data set and concluded that scientists tend to be the most productive in their mid-thirties (Stephan & Levan, 1993.) Finally, a 2008 study of 300 randomly selected bioscientists revealed that the most productive age was 36-40 (Falagas et al., 2008) based on the number of citations from their publications. These studies all indicate that a scientist's greatest potential for discovery is during their thirties" If instead you measure productivity in number of articles published, this study (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00142022 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00142022) claims that productivity peaks at 45-49. However that number covers a wide variety of fields, not just science, and makes no attempt to account for the quality or significance of the work.
jamesrcole 11y ago
>> We need big thinkers > We need some, but there aren't anywhere near enough big-thinking jobs Ok. Perhaps we also need jobs for them? [EDIT: what I mean is, perhaps it is in society's interest to divert some resources to creating more jobs for such people?] And perhaps the research itself, that these big thinkers do for their PhDs, has important value for society?
- jmmcd 11y ago
  Diverting resources sounds good, but obviously should come first. The research itself could and should have value. But a PhD must go all the way to the bottom, in terms of detail. It's not a pop science book or a funding programme, which can delegate the details to someone else. Therefore, asking the PhD student to be a big thinker as well as taking care of the experimental details is just raising the bar -- it's not changing the focus, it's raising the bar. Fewer people will be able to start PhDs and fewer will be able to complete them. The article doesn't suggest that this has been recognised. Instead, I suggest that a PhD is not a great vehicle for "big thinking", and instead serves as a training-ground for planning, executing and describing ordinary research. Maybe the big thinking should be done -- as it is currently -- by people who have already demonstrated that they can do all that very well.
  - jamesrcole 11y ago
    I think you're conflating "ordinary research" and "applied research". "Big thinking" is often pure research, and pure research is just as valid a topic for a PhD as applied research is. There's not a lot of other opportunities to spend a significant amount of time working on the one thing. > Maybe the big thinking should be done -- as it is currently -- by people who have already demonstrated that they can do all that very well. I completely dispute this. I would bet that historically, the majority of "big thinking" has been done by people who are not already well established. In fact, I think there's a fallacy that "big thinking" somehow comes from accumulated experience. I would argue that "big thinking" is actually a different kind of thinking, one that requires you to have that kind of thinking rather than a wealth of experience. [EDIT: there seems to be empirical evidence that having a wealth of experience tends to prevent people from coming up with (good) "big ideas". And since this is Hacker News, think about this in terms of technology and startups. Is it usually older people or younger people who tend to come up with the game-changing tech developments?]
rquantz 11y ago
> We need big thinkers We need some, but there aren't anywhere near enough big-thinking jobs for all these PhDs. Yeah, man, jobs! It's all about jobs! Jobs jobs jobs! Steve Jobs! Jobs jobs! How about this? The world needs big thinkers in ways other than their capacity as economic actors. Einstein worked at a patent office. The work he did there (for the patent office) was not his primary contribution to the world at that time.
- jmmcd 11y ago
  Great! Meanwhile his PhD was not particularly "big thinking". So in Einstein's case I think we're both happy? As for jobs jobs, I think you missed the point. If we lie to PhD candidates about career prospects and train them in things that have a negative effect on their careers, then the best people won't undertake research.
- cryoshon 11y ago
  Yeah, I think the author forgot that: 1. Being smart isn't a product, and most people won't consider it a skill 2. Thinking big isn't a product, and most people won't consider it a skill 3. Thinking big is usually reserved for top level people, of which there are less than five You know what they call the big thinker who is looking for a job with his shiny new PhD? Unemployed.
  - nmrm2 11y ago
    > You know what they call the big thinker who is looking for a job with his shiny new PhD? In technical fields (which is what this article is about)? The ones who choose to stay in academia and are lucky enought to find a position are called "Professor". The unlucky or disillusioned ones -- as well as the (majority) of PhDs who never even intended to go into academia at any point during thier studies -- are called, variously, "Engineer", "Analyst", "Consultant", etc. and typically start in the low six figures (and not even in the bay area / NYC). They take a marginal hit to their lifetime earnings, but in most cases make decent salaries and get to work on more interesting problems (obv. interesting is subjective). > Unemployed. The unemployment rate for STEM PhDs is ludicrously low (FYI: if you google this, be aware that the Slate article by Jordan Weissmann is IMO purposefully misleading. See Table 1 of http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf14310/ http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf14310/ and compare to his graphs. E.g., his graph seems to indicate that the unemployment rate for CS PhDs was over around 15% in 2001, but the NSF tables makes it clear that the rate was 0.9%, which is even more than what most economists refer to as full employment. In fact, in CS, the increase for 0.9% to 2% is almost entirely attributable to there being a lot more retired CS phds now than 10 years ago (for rather obvious reasons). So the stats he's using to tell his story are, at very best, unintentionally but absurdly non-representative of the actual state of affairs. It's like asking someone the day after they quit their job if they've started their new job yet and, when they say "hell no, taking some time off to recharge", assuming they're unemployable and/or don't have something lined up.)
theyblinked 11y ago
Thinking isn't about jobs. It is about life. Perverse incentives is a great point.

by jmmcd 11y ago

Fede_V 11y ago

Yeah, pretty much exactly this. In the abstract, I fully support teaching science PhDs more about Quine, Russell, Popper, Carnap - they are all great thinkers who had very intelligent ideas. In practice, PhDs at top tier institutions are far too concerned with the day to day rat race that the history of ideas is not likely to be a serious priority. As long as the competition for stable positions will remain so fierce, and the criteria for which candidates are judged will remain so narrow, the problems are likely to be far more prosaic than those raised by analytical philosophers.

jamesrcole 11y ago
> In practice, ... You're arguing that what happens to be the case now is how it should be. Do you think this is the best way for it to be, and if so, why?
- Fede_V 11y ago
  Absolutely no. However, as the parent comment pointed out, the root problem is the broken incentives - the lack of philosophical sophistication of scientists is at best a 3rd order term.
cryoshon 11y ago
The last academic shop I was at had an Eritrean biostatistician around who was the only actual philosopher of science in the entire troupe. He understood the different perspectives of epistemology as well as statistical analysis, and was a tremendous asset in planning new studies for the most high impact data... unfortunately, to many of the postdocs and PIs, he was just an annoyance, because they refused to accept that their studies were poorly constructed and their data was less than rigorous.

emanuelev 11y ago

I quite agree that the post PhD job market is kind of challenging as there are few companies tackling big questions. However, if you forget the job market, the argument the guy is making is absolutely spot on. There's a solid trend in academia that is "publish early, publish fast". Although one might argue that it actually makes sense (career-wise or whatever), it is intrinsic in such a system to penalise pursuing big, risky ideas. Considering that the PhD (and the few years after) are the most productive in a researcher's life, it is a shame that students are not actively encouraged to think bigger.

rhaps0dy 11y ago
>the PhD (and the few years after) are the most productive in a researcher's life Source? I'm curious.
- 4ad 11y ago
  Not a "real" study, but it appears to be true: https://youtu.be/Mpsc-BxAiHs?t=1537 https://youtu.be/Mpsc-BxAiHs?t=1537
  - dagw 11y ago
    It's a common view, but a number of studies seem to contradict of at least question this: http://openaccessweek.org/profiles/blogs/age-amp-science-do-scientists-make-their-best-discoveries-during http://openaccessweek.org/profiles/blogs/age-amp-science-do-... "A study in 2002 examined 50 Nobel prize winners from each of the three prizes for physics, chemistry and medicine. This study recorded the age of the scientists when they had done the work that was rewarded with the prize and found that the centre points for age were: physics, 34; chemistry, 37; medicine, 40 (Marchetti C, 2002.) A study published in 1993 investigated a similar data set and concluded that scientists tend to be the most productive in their mid-thirties (Stephan & Levan, 1993.) Finally, a 2008 study of 300 randomly selected bioscientists revealed that the most productive age was 36-40 (Falagas et al., 2008) based on the number of citations from their publications. These studies all indicate that a scientist's greatest potential for discovery is during their thirties" If instead you measure productivity in number of articles published, this study (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00142022 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00142022) claims that productivity peaks at 45-49. However that number covers a wide variety of fields, not just science, and makes no attempt to account for the quality or significance of the work.

jamesrcole 11y ago

>> We need big thinkers > We need some, but there aren't anywhere near enough big-thinking jobs Ok. Perhaps we also need jobs for them? [EDIT: what I mean is, perhaps it is in society's interest to divert some resources to creating more jobs for such people?] And perhaps the research itself, that these big thinkers do for their PhDs, has important value for society?

jmmcd 11y ago
Diverting resources sounds good, but obviously should come first. The research itself could and should have value. But a PhD must go all the way to the bottom, in terms of detail. It's not a pop science book or a funding programme, which can delegate the details to someone else. Therefore, asking the PhD student to be a big thinker as well as taking care of the experimental details is just raising the bar -- it's not changing the focus, it's raising the bar. Fewer people will be able to start PhDs and fewer will be able to complete them. The article doesn't suggest that this has been recognised. Instead, I suggest that a PhD is not a great vehicle for "big thinking", and instead serves as a training-ground for planning, executing and describing ordinary research. Maybe the big thinking should be done -- as it is currently -- by people who have already demonstrated that they can do all that very well.
- jamesrcole 11y ago
  I think you're conflating "ordinary research" and "applied research". "Big thinking" is often pure research, and pure research is just as valid a topic for a PhD as applied research is. There's not a lot of other opportunities to spend a significant amount of time working on the one thing. > Maybe the big thinking should be done -- as it is currently -- by people who have already demonstrated that they can do all that very well. I completely dispute this. I would bet that historically, the majority of "big thinking" has been done by people who are not already well established. In fact, I think there's a fallacy that "big thinking" somehow comes from accumulated experience. I would argue that "big thinking" is actually a different kind of thinking, one that requires you to have that kind of thinking rather than a wealth of experience. [EDIT: there seems to be empirical evidence that having a wealth of experience tends to prevent people from coming up with (good) "big ideas". And since this is Hacker News, think about this in terms of technology and startups. Is it usually older people or younger people who tend to come up with the game-changing tech developments?]

rquantz 11y ago

> We need big thinkers We need some, but there aren't anywhere near enough big-thinking jobs for all these PhDs. Yeah, man, jobs! It's all about jobs! Jobs jobs jobs! Steve Jobs! Jobs jobs! How about this? The world needs big thinkers in ways other than their capacity as economic actors. Einstein worked at a patent office. The work he did there (for the patent office) was not his primary contribution to the world at that time.

jmmcd 11y ago
Great! Meanwhile his PhD was not particularly "big thinking". So in Einstein's case I think we're both happy? As for jobs jobs, I think you missed the point. If we lie to PhD candidates about career prospects and train them in things that have a negative effect on their careers, then the best people won't undertake research.
cryoshon 11y ago
Yeah, I think the author forgot that: 1. Being smart isn't a product, and most people won't consider it a skill 2. Thinking big isn't a product, and most people won't consider it a skill 3. Thinking big is usually reserved for top level people, of which there are less than five You know what they call the big thinker who is looking for a job with his shiny new PhD? Unemployed.
- nmrm2 11y ago
  > You know what they call the big thinker who is looking for a job with his shiny new PhD? In technical fields (which is what this article is about)? The ones who choose to stay in academia and are lucky enought to find a position are called "Professor". The unlucky or disillusioned ones -- as well as the (majority) of PhDs who never even intended to go into academia at any point during thier studies -- are called, variously, "Engineer", "Analyst", "Consultant", etc. and typically start in the low six figures (and not even in the bay area / NYC). They take a marginal hit to their lifetime earnings, but in most cases make decent salaries and get to work on more interesting problems (obv. interesting is subjective). > Unemployed. The unemployment rate for STEM PhDs is ludicrously low (FYI: if you google this, be aware that the Slate article by Jordan Weissmann is IMO purposefully misleading. See Table 1 of http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf14310/ http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf14310/ and compare to his graphs. E.g., his graph seems to indicate that the unemployment rate for CS PhDs was over around 15% in 2001, but the NSF tables makes it clear that the rate was 0.9%, which is even more than what most economists refer to as full employment. In fact, in CS, the increase for 0.9% to 2% is almost entirely attributable to there being a lot more retired CS phds now than 10 years ago (for rather obvious reasons). So the stats he's using to tell his story are, at very best, unintentionally but absurdly non-representative of the actual state of affairs. It's like asking someone the day after they quit their job if they've started their new job yet and, when they say "hell no, taking some time off to recharge", assuming they're unemployable and/or don't have something lined up.)

theyblinked 11y ago

Thinking isn't about jobs. It is about life. Perverse incentives is a great point.