4 ms·

No, they need knowledge, creativity, and courage to ask "why?" and "why not?" A PhD is a firm credential for a job in academia that may or may not indicate tha

by akadien 17y ago

No, they need knowledge, creativity, and courage to ask "why?" and "why not?" A PhD is a firm credential for a job in academia that may or may not indicate that you have these qualities. It is neither necessary nor sufficient to becoming a scientist.

scott_s 17y ago
The question isn't "Do people need the degree?" They're using PhD as a metonymy for the Western process of training researchers. What they're asking is "Is our current process of training researchers necessary?" The current process involves some breadth requirement (exposure to most of your field), and doing a starter-project (the dissertation).
- cool-RR 17y ago
  And willingness to spend years of their young adult life jumping through academia's hoops.
- cool-RR 17y ago
  And willingness to spend years of their young adult life jumping through academia's hoops.
  - foldr 17y ago
    You can make that sort of snarky comment about pretty much any career. There are always hoops to jump through (though you might not see them till you get there).
- akadien 17y ago
  Those two questions have the same answer. I have a PhD and my experience is that the process is broken because it's geared towards the wrong goals of (1) writing papers, (2) getting grants, and (3) the game of getting a tenure-track position and then tenure. If you happen to make a great discovery, that's nice, too. Most people I know get a PhD for career advancement, not to engage in the scientific and discovery process. My experience was that the process was more "cargo cult science" and less science.
  - foldr 17y ago
    I think you just had the wrong expectations about what a PhD is. The idea isn't just to work on interesting problems for 5 years. You're also meant to learn how to function as an academic, which necessarily means learning how to write papers and (maybe) get grants. There's nothing "cargo cult" about that. After all, cynicism aside, one of the best ways to get a paper published is to actually have a good idea. >Most people I know get a PhD for career advancement, not to engage in the scientific and discovery process. If you're in your 20s you'd have to be a bit crazy to take 5 years out without thinking about your future career. If PhD programs didn't cater at all to people's career needs you'd have an even heavier bias towards wealthy students in grad school. That wouldn't be good for research.
    - akadien 17y ago
      It would appear so, but I did not. I have no regrets and enjoyed my time as student and professor. I self-funded my PhD through fellowships and work, which gave me freedom to work on any problem I wanted. That taught me self-reliance and the power of creativity, not just technical skill and process. That is something I don't think my counterparts who were supported by grants grasped very well. During my time as a professor, I tried to give my own PhD students the same freedom. I agree that having good discoveries and novel algorithms should be a good way to get a paper published. I respectfully disagree that the process isn't "cargo cult", though. In practice, it tends to be more often than not. The research culture rewards quantity over quality, and most papers are rubbish. You will hear "Dr A has B publications" 100+ times more often than "Dr C has a few papers that have been cited hundreds of times." That's an indicator that our research culture is broken.
      - foldr 17y ago
        I guess it depends a lot on the field. I'm funded mostly by my department and there aren't any restrictions on what I can work on. I don't find the standard of published papers to be particularly awful, and my colleagues seem to be getting on fine. I agree that the emphasis on publication volume is a pain, but it's not so easy to find good alternatives. In principle, it's all very well to say that one good publication should count for more than ten mediocre publications, but it gets a little tricky to make decisions that way in practice. It could well have the opposite of the desired effect by making the process even more cliquey that it currently is. In general, I'm a bit bemused that people seem to hold academia to such absurdly high standards. Some people seem to go in expecting it to be a bullshit-free paradise of open and free enquiry. Well, it isn't -- academics are human too. But it's really not as bad as all that.
Xichekolas 17y ago
I partially disagree. The point of the PhD process is not to create knowledgeable, creative, courageous scientists. As you point out, they can (and do) come to be that type of person on their own. The value of the PhD is to teach the budding scientist the process that surrounds modern science. It's an opportunity to learn what the social structures in the field are (societies and conferences), to meet fellow scientists and form a network of people to draw on for ideas and criticism, and to learn the vagaries of funding and formally writing up research. Having a PhD says "I know how to do all these things... I know who the important people in my field are... I know which conferences are the most important... I know how to get funding". All of these things are important things to know if you want to do science professionally, because you need the connections and the funding to put food on the table. This isn't to say the PhD is some magical permission to do science. Lots of great science is done by amateurs, and more power to them. So scientists don't need a PhD to do science, but it is more than just a credential. It's a valuable training program on how to navigate all the social and bureaucratic things that surround the actual science.

by akadien 17y ago

scott_s 17y ago

The question isn't "Do people need the degree?" They're using PhD as a metonymy for the Western process of training researchers. What they're asking is "Is our current process of training researchers necessary?" The current process involves some breadth requirement (exposure to most of your field), and doing a starter-project (the dissertation).

cool-RR 17y ago
And willingness to spend years of their young adult life jumping through academia's hoops.
cool-RR 17y ago
And willingness to spend years of their young adult life jumping through academia's hoops.
- foldr 17y ago
  You can make that sort of snarky comment about pretty much any career. There are always hoops to jump through (though you might not see them till you get there).
akadien 17y ago
Those two questions have the same answer. I have a PhD and my experience is that the process is broken because it's geared towards the wrong goals of (1) writing papers, (2) getting grants, and (3) the game of getting a tenure-track position and then tenure. If you happen to make a great discovery, that's nice, too. Most people I know get a PhD for career advancement, not to engage in the scientific and discovery process. My experience was that the process was more "cargo cult science" and less science.
- foldr 17y ago
  I think you just had the wrong expectations about what a PhD is. The idea isn't just to work on interesting problems for 5 years. You're also meant to learn how to function as an academic, which necessarily means learning how to write papers and (maybe) get grants. There's nothing "cargo cult" about that. After all, cynicism aside, one of the best ways to get a paper published is to actually have a good idea. >Most people I know get a PhD for career advancement, not to engage in the scientific and discovery process. If you're in your 20s you'd have to be a bit crazy to take 5 years out without thinking about your future career. If PhD programs didn't cater at all to people's career needs you'd have an even heavier bias towards wealthy students in grad school. That wouldn't be good for research.
  - akadien 17y ago
    It would appear so, but I did not. I have no regrets and enjoyed my time as student and professor. I self-funded my PhD through fellowships and work, which gave me freedom to work on any problem I wanted. That taught me self-reliance and the power of creativity, not just technical skill and process. That is something I don't think my counterparts who were supported by grants grasped very well. During my time as a professor, I tried to give my own PhD students the same freedom. I agree that having good discoveries and novel algorithms should be a good way to get a paper published. I respectfully disagree that the process isn't "cargo cult", though. In practice, it tends to be more often than not. The research culture rewards quantity over quality, and most papers are rubbish. You will hear "Dr A has B publications" 100+ times more often than "Dr C has a few papers that have been cited hundreds of times." That's an indicator that our research culture is broken.
    - foldr 17y ago
      I guess it depends a lot on the field. I'm funded mostly by my department and there aren't any restrictions on what I can work on. I don't find the standard of published papers to be particularly awful, and my colleagues seem to be getting on fine. I agree that the emphasis on publication volume is a pain, but it's not so easy to find good alternatives. In principle, it's all very well to say that one good publication should count for more than ten mediocre publications, but it gets a little tricky to make decisions that way in practice. It could well have the opposite of the desired effect by making the process even more cliquey that it currently is. In general, I'm a bit bemused that people seem to hold academia to such absurdly high standards. Some people seem to go in expecting it to be a bullshit-free paradise of open and free enquiry. Well, it isn't -- academics are human too. But it's really not as bad as all that.

Xichekolas 17y ago

I partially disagree. The point of the PhD process is not to create knowledgeable, creative, courageous scientists. As you point out, they can (and do) come to be that type of person on their own. The value of the PhD is to teach the budding scientist the process that surrounds modern science. It's an opportunity to learn what the social structures in the field are (societies and conferences), to meet fellow scientists and form a network of people to draw on for ideas and criticism, and to learn the vagaries of funding and formally writing up research. Having a PhD says "I know how to do all these things... I know who the important people in my field are... I know which conferences are the most important... I know how to get funding". All of these things are important things to know if you want to do science professionally, because you need the connections and the funding to put food on the table. This isn't to say the PhD is some magical permission to do science. Lots of great science is done by amateurs, and more power to them. So scientists don't need a PhD to do science, but it is more than just a credential. It's a valuable training program on how to navigate all the social and bureaucratic things that surround the actual science.