3 ms·
Half were in Chemistry; anybody know what the Chemists are doing wrong? Or right???
by drfuchs 9y ago
Half were in Chemistry; anybody know what the Chemists are doing wrong? Or right???
- akvadrako 9y agoWhat kind of person goes into Chemistry? The really serious sciencey people I knew would go into physics, math or maybe something like AI. And the softer sciencey people would more likely tend towards engineering or biology. Maybe chemists are just not open to taking big risks. And hence they reject papers which violate "known" laws.
- dexwiz 9y agoChemistry as a field seems stuck in the last century. I did an undergrad in Chemistry with some part time lab work. I ultimately left for a few reasons. 1. Research is largely based on guess and check. Computational chemistry (modeling) is not very reliable. It seems stuck between two layers. Its above modeling particles in physics, but below modeling materials in engineering. 2. Ridiculous work hours/times. 80 hours / 6 days a week is barely scratching the surface. I had a few grad students that I worked with that had 0 time outside the lab that was not spent eating or sleeping (which they also did in the breakroom). 3. Confirmation bias plagues the industry. This does affect the larger community, but seems stronger in Chemistry due to how finicky old spectroscopy machines can be. Run a sample 10 times and get 10 results. Good luck when all your samples in the microgram range.
- akvadrako 9y agoThanks, that's really a valuable insight into the field. The closest thing I know about is the physics field and I'm not into it enough to be confident about my observations. But I do suspect it has different problems, yet just as serious and of a similar nature.
- tostitos1979 9y agoSciencey people going into AI????? Maybe during the AI winter. Today, we are living in a hype bubble of epic proportions.