4 ms·

It's amazing how much hand wringing is done about the symptoms of problems in academia (especially life sciences) without anyone actually addressing the root ca

It's amazing how much hand wringing is done about the symptoms of problems in academia (especially life sciences) without anyone actually addressing the root causes. The reason all of these problems exist is because the space is over populated, ruthlessly competitive, and under funded. It's really that simple. Create many more professorship positions for post docs, raise the NIH, NSF, and DOD research budgets to where they should be, and all of these problems will go away. Trying to solve these problem by throttling the number of papers people can publish is putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound.

T-A 9y ago
"I firmly believe that this problem cannot be solved by more government money. If federal support for basic research were to be doubled (as many are calling for), the result would merely be to tack on a few more years of exponential expansion before we'd find ourselves in exactly the same situation again." David Goodstein, "The Big Crunch" http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
- Thriptic 9y ago
  I had not read this before and that's a valid point, thanks for sharing. I think I would say two things to this. First, theoretically we could attack the problem from both sides. We could constrain supply in the way that med school prevents an oversupply of physicians while also increasing the total amount of resources available to those practicing science. More practically, I tend to believe that basic and translational science is a huge boon to global prosperity and also an economic engine for the United States. Ergo, if we run into the same problem down the road again, just keep raising the budget and make more positions. We have a long way to go before we exhaust the benefits of additional research, and the money we spend on research is a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on other less useful ventures.
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    Med school limits are a way for doctors to seize wealth from patients. The industry is reacting to their greed my moving work to nurses and PAs.
  - discoursism 9y ago
    The supply constraints med schools impose most certainly are not to prevent "oversupply" of doctors. Depending on who you ask, there are two main reasons they exist. One view is that there's a finite amount of doctors willing to work at academic hospitals, and thus there's a limited amount of new medical students that can be adequately trained. Another view is that medical schools collude to form a guild to better separate the American populace from their money, by ensuring that doctors are always scarce relative to the demand for their services. This allows doctors to demand a dramatically higher compensation for their efforts than in other countries, despite being no better here than elsewhere.
    - crimsonalucard 9y ago
      In a normal economy the only thing regulating supply, is demand. The kind of organization that imposes supply constraints to sarcastically prevent "oversupply" are called cartels. You know, like a drug cartel?
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        True to the definition of the word, but you have a wrong example. "Drug cartels" are anything but, and the only actual cartel in the drug trade is the United States government.
    - posterboy 9y ago
      To be fair, it's a doctors declared goal, to reduce the need for themselves. From a system stand point, down regulation in moderately quiet times promotes people to be well healthy by their own. It's symmetric if its not just doctors monotonically maximizing their income, but also patients and doctors competing with each other and one another for prosperity. So the doctors who earn most, should in principle dampen their own optimal payout.
- s0rce 9y ago
  I agree, more money might contribute to more research and may or may not be a useful expenditure but I don't think it will solve the problems mentioned. It seems that limiting the number of PhD/post-doc postions such that they have a high likelyhood of ataining academic positions is the correct course. Although, I'm less familiar with the medical education system in the US/Canada it seems like this is roughly the model they follow. We don't need industry taking advantage of the glut of PhD grads, they could be responsible for training and not take academics who quit because they can't find suitable jobs after graduation.
dogruck 9y ago
I smell some unsubstantiated opinions. Raise government research budgets to "where they should be" sounds like a good recipe for wasteful spending. I might be on board with "govt matches private contributions."
fjsolwmv 9y ago
It seems psychology is over funded, considering how much garbage is constantly spewed out.
demonshalo 9y ago
It's funny how the solution to some people is throwing more money at whatever problem society faces... There are many problems with academia, sure funding is one of them, but it is by far not even close to top 5 in this case.
KKKKkkkk1 9y ago
I don't get it. The problem: A lot of lousy research gets published in order to game the academic system. Your solution: More funding. Do you really think those guys who are already gaming the system will not make a grab at the extra funding?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

T-A 9y ago

"I firmly believe that this problem cannot be solved by more government money. If federal support for basic research were to be doubled (as many are calling for), the result would merely be to tack on a few more years of exponential expansion before we'd find ourselves in exactly the same situation again." David Goodstein, "The Big Crunch" http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html

Thriptic 9y ago
I had not read this before and that's a valid point, thanks for sharing. I think I would say two things to this. First, theoretically we could attack the problem from both sides. We could constrain supply in the way that med school prevents an oversupply of physicians while also increasing the total amount of resources available to those practicing science. More practically, I tend to believe that basic and translational science is a huge boon to global prosperity and also an economic engine for the United States. Ergo, if we run into the same problem down the road again, just keep raising the budget and make more positions. We have a long way to go before we exhaust the benefits of additional research, and the money we spend on research is a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on other less useful ventures.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  Med school limits are a way for doctors to seize wealth from patients. The industry is reacting to their greed my moving work to nurses and PAs.
- discoursism 9y ago
  The supply constraints med schools impose most certainly are not to prevent "oversupply" of doctors. Depending on who you ask, there are two main reasons they exist. One view is that there's a finite amount of doctors willing to work at academic hospitals, and thus there's a limited amount of new medical students that can be adequately trained. Another view is that medical schools collude to form a guild to better separate the American populace from their money, by ensuring that doctors are always scarce relative to the demand for their services. This allows doctors to demand a dramatically higher compensation for their efforts than in other countries, despite being no better here than elsewhere.
  - crimsonalucard 9y ago
    In a normal economy the only thing regulating supply, is demand. The kind of organization that imposes supply constraints to sarcastically prevent "oversupply" are called cartels. You know, like a drug cartel?
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      True to the definition of the word, but you have a wrong example. "Drug cartels" are anything but, and the only actual cartel in the drug trade is the United States government.
  - posterboy 9y ago
    To be fair, it's a doctors declared goal, to reduce the need for themselves. From a system stand point, down regulation in moderately quiet times promotes people to be well healthy by their own. It's symmetric if its not just doctors monotonically maximizing their income, but also patients and doctors competing with each other and one another for prosperity. So the doctors who earn most, should in principle dampen their own optimal payout.
s0rce 9y ago
I agree, more money might contribute to more research and may or may not be a useful expenditure but I don't think it will solve the problems mentioned. It seems that limiting the number of PhD/post-doc postions such that they have a high likelyhood of ataining academic positions is the correct course. Although, I'm less familiar with the medical education system in the US/Canada it seems like this is roughly the model they follow. We don't need industry taking advantage of the glut of PhD grads, they could be responsible for training and not take academics who quit because they can't find suitable jobs after graduation.

dogruck 9y ago

I smell some unsubstantiated opinions. Raise government research budgets to "where they should be" sounds like a good recipe for wasteful spending. I might be on board with "govt matches private contributions."

fjsolwmv 9y ago

It seems psychology is over funded, considering how much garbage is constantly spewed out.

demonshalo 9y ago

It's funny how the solution to some people is throwing more money at whatever problem society faces... There are many problems with academia, sure funding is one of them, but it is by far not even close to top 5 in this case.

KKKKkkkk1 9y ago

I don't get it. The problem: A lot of lousy research gets published in order to game the academic system. Your solution: More funding. Do you really think those guys who are already gaming the system will not make a grab at the extra funding?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]