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> Now that I've gone back to do my PhD, the only reason I can do something I consider meaningful is because I am not a regular PhD student. Interesting, your e

by HSO 10y ago

> Now that I've gone back to do my PhD, the only reason I can do something I consider meaningful is because I am not a regular PhD student. Interesting, your experience matches mine very closely! I once quit a doctoral program in disgust but once I had enough money to fund myself, I could go back to become, perhaps similar to you, a "not regular PhD student" and create a more suitable situation for myself. Not only did I become free in my choice of research topic and collaborators/supervisors. More importantly, I was able to reject proposed, "faster" topics that would have led more immediately to bite-sized, publishable results. As a result, I was able to find and work on something I believe could be fundamental in my field. On a sidenote, I just started re-reading Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. I am growing more and more convinced that the right way to do something important in today's academic environment (that's the link to OP) is the sort of half-half position that seems to be our shared experience. If you are too much of an insider, you might end up doing "normal science". If you are too much of an outsider, the risk is high that you are/become just another crank. Half-half seems like a good position. Maybe a few decades ago, it was still possible to hold an academic position and maintain one's independence. Today, a full-fledged, conventional academic career seems hard to square with a free spirit, what with all the dross of admin and the drag of teaching duties.

d_burfoot 10y ago
> you might end up doing "normal science" Note that Kuhn doesn't think that normal science is bad in general. Normal science - incremental, systematic research within a scientific community with clear, well-defined rules and solution methods - is necessary and worthwhile, IF you have a good paradigm. When Scott Aaronson publishes a new proof about some obscure or exotic quantum computational complexity class, that is valuable normal science. When the Intel researchers in the 80s or 90s came up with the umpteenth optimization trick that enabled next year's scheduled Moore's Law microprocessor speed doubling, that is valuable normal science. The problem comes when researchers try to do normal science without a good paradigm, either because they never had one to begin with, or because their old paradigm broke down. For example, it looks like the statistics-based paradigm that guided research in psychology is breaking down, because of the replication crisis. Kuhn's advice to people in this situation would be to re-examine the philosophical basis of the field, NOT to continue on doing business as usual.
- HSO 10y ago
  > Note that Kuhn doesn't think that normal science is bad in general. Yeah, I did not write that well. I was thinking too much about myself. From a population point of view, I agree with you (or Kuhn) that "normal science" is a necessary and valuable part of the enterprise. It would be inefficient to have everybody constantly questioning everything. You need the "normals" to milk a given paradigm for all its worth and the rebels to keep the paradigm, if you will, "on its toes" and replace it when the time has come. It seems to me commerce is not dissimilar. Not everybody can or should be a wide-eyed entrepreneur. You need people who compete within a business model (in the process wringing all the efficiencies to be had out of it) as well as entrepreneurs who create and thus compete between business models. I wonder if there is an optimal proportion between entrepreneurial/rebellious "predators" and "normals".
  - hueving 10y ago
    http://aaronhoos.com/2011/03/03/3-kinds-of-entrepreneurs-which-one-are-you/ http://aaronhoos.com/2011/03/03/3-kinds-of-entrepreneurs-whi...
- cJ0th 10y ago
  > Kuhn's advice to people in this situation would be to re-examine the philosophical basis of the field, NOT to continue on doing business as usual. I am not familiar with Kuhn but the statements you echo resonate deeply with me. I hope in some places academics do shift their paradigm (when necessary) but from what I've seen at uni the outlook is bleak. Researchers do x for years, built up their reputation by doing so and at some point their ego is so big that they don't dare asking themselves whether they've wasted years doing something very stupid. Even worse, these people favor PhD candidates that are willing to follow their footsteps.
westoncb 10y ago
It is of course more exciting to be working on revolutionary science than normal science—but I wonder if normal science seems worse than it needs to be just because it's more susceptible to a kind of bureaucratic watering down—e.g. like pushing participants to sacrifice quality in their work for publishability, as you mention.
winter_blue 10y ago
> Interesting, your experience matches mine very closely! I once quit a doctoral program in disgust but once I had enough money to fund myself, I could go back to become, perhaps similar to you, a "not regular PhD student" and create a more suitable situation for myself. Not only did I become free in my choice of research topic and collaborators/supervisors. More importantly, I was able to reject proposed, "faster" topics that would have led more immediately to bite-sized, publishable results. As a result, I was able to find and work on something I believe could be fundamental in my field. This is really the way to go. You have to love your field so much that you're willing to save up enough to support yourself to do independent research in your field. I've been thinking of doing that. Saving up enough to support myself to work on a research-esque project (i.e. not a startup with necessarily any revenue-generating potential). Your love for your field (in my case, computer science) has to be so great that you're willing to forego the currently ridiculously high developer salaries for a number of years to try to advance the field as a whole (which ideally benefits society on the whole, but doesn't benefit you in a financial sense anywhere as much).

by HSO 10y ago

d_burfoot 10y ago

> you might end up doing "normal science" Note that Kuhn doesn't think that normal science is bad in general. Normal science - incremental, systematic research within a scientific community with clear, well-defined rules and solution methods - is necessary and worthwhile, IF you have a good paradigm. When Scott Aaronson publishes a new proof about some obscure or exotic quantum computational complexity class, that is valuable normal science. When the Intel researchers in the 80s or 90s came up with the umpteenth optimization trick that enabled next year's scheduled Moore's Law microprocessor speed doubling, that is valuable normal science. The problem comes when researchers try to do normal science without a good paradigm, either because they never had one to begin with, or because their old paradigm broke down. For example, it looks like the statistics-based paradigm that guided research in psychology is breaking down, because of the replication crisis. Kuhn's advice to people in this situation would be to re-examine the philosophical basis of the field, NOT to continue on doing business as usual.

HSO 10y ago
> Note that Kuhn doesn't think that normal science is bad in general. Yeah, I did not write that well. I was thinking too much about myself. From a population point of view, I agree with you (or Kuhn) that "normal science" is a necessary and valuable part of the enterprise. It would be inefficient to have everybody constantly questioning everything. You need the "normals" to milk a given paradigm for all its worth and the rebels to keep the paradigm, if you will, "on its toes" and replace it when the time has come. It seems to me commerce is not dissimilar. Not everybody can or should be a wide-eyed entrepreneur. You need people who compete within a business model (in the process wringing all the efficiencies to be had out of it) as well as entrepreneurs who create and thus compete between business models. I wonder if there is an optimal proportion between entrepreneurial/rebellious "predators" and "normals".
- hueving 10y ago
  http://aaronhoos.com/2011/03/03/3-kinds-of-entrepreneurs-which-one-are-you/ http://aaronhoos.com/2011/03/03/3-kinds-of-entrepreneurs-whi...
cJ0th 10y ago
> Kuhn's advice to people in this situation would be to re-examine the philosophical basis of the field, NOT to continue on doing business as usual. I am not familiar with Kuhn but the statements you echo resonate deeply with me. I hope in some places academics do shift their paradigm (when necessary) but from what I've seen at uni the outlook is bleak. Researchers do x for years, built up their reputation by doing so and at some point their ego is so big that they don't dare asking themselves whether they've wasted years doing something very stupid. Even worse, these people favor PhD candidates that are willing to follow their footsteps.

westoncb 10y ago

It is of course more exciting to be working on revolutionary science than normal science—but I wonder if normal science seems worse than it needs to be just because it's more susceptible to a kind of bureaucratic watering down—e.g. like pushing participants to sacrifice quality in their work for publishability, as you mention.

winter_blue 10y ago

> Interesting, your experience matches mine very closely! I once quit a doctoral program in disgust but once I had enough money to fund myself, I could go back to become, perhaps similar to you, a "not regular PhD student" and create a more suitable situation for myself. Not only did I become free in my choice of research topic and collaborators/supervisors. More importantly, I was able to reject proposed, "faster" topics that would have led more immediately to bite-sized, publishable results. As a result, I was able to find and work on something I believe could be fundamental in my field. This is really the way to go. You have to love your field so much that you're willing to save up enough to support yourself to do independent research in your field. I've been thinking of doing that. Saving up enough to support myself to work on a research-esque project (i.e. not a startup with necessarily any revenue-generating potential). Your love for your field (in my case, computer science) has to be so great that you're willing to forego the currently ridiculously high developer salaries for a number of years to try to advance the field as a whole (which ideally benefits society on the whole, but doesn't benefit you in a financial sense anywhere as much).