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> in 100% of the cases in my experience do not engage in anything related to their thesis This is missing the point of a PhD, which is to develop a capacity fo

> in 100% of the cases in my experience do not engage in anything related to their thesis This is missing the point of a PhD, which is to develop a capacity for doing science (or more generally hard thinking in relevant domain). Most of my colleagues in neuroscience are physicists

stochastician 8y ago
Exactly this; this is also why people with multiple PhDs are incredibly rare (and viewed as odd ducks). The expectation is you've been trained to do "science" if you have a PhD, and thus a second one is redundant.
- collyw 8y ago
  Exactly. I have met plenty of PhDs that have switched fields from Physics to biology for example.
- brainpool 8y ago
  Spot on. Note also that the person taking on that second PhD took up a spot that could have been useful for someone else. Odd duck indeed.
- marmaduke 8y ago
  I hadn’t thought about the multi PhD case.. I’ve never met one. I’d expect someone to do a post doc even if it’s far afield from their PhD.
BeetleB 8y ago
>This is missing the point of a PhD, which is to develop a capacity for doing science (or more generally hard thinking in relevant domain) These days, it is more about the ability to publish. A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a friend of mine who is wrapping up his PhD. He pointed out that not one of his colleagues is concerned whether anyone can reproduce their work. They use a home grown simulation suite which only they have access to, and is constantly being updated with the worst software practices you can think of. No one in their team believes that the tool will give the same results they did 4 years ago. The troubling part is, no one sees that as being a problem. They got their papers published, and so the SW did its job. (Should not be surprising to anyone who spends a lot of time in engineering PhD programs).
- marmaduke 8y ago
  But those AI programs that started this discussion would have teams of engineers to do that SW correctly. One interpretation of science is just making theories and testing them with experiments, no solid software engineering required. Another says reproducibility is important but the current incentive structure is not there yet.

stochastician 8y ago

Exactly this; this is also why people with multiple PhDs are incredibly rare (and viewed as odd ducks). The expectation is you've been trained to do "science" if you have a PhD, and thus a second one is redundant.

collyw 8y ago
Exactly. I have met plenty of PhDs that have switched fields from Physics to biology for example.
brainpool 8y ago
Spot on. Note also that the person taking on that second PhD took up a spot that could have been useful for someone else. Odd duck indeed.
marmaduke 8y ago
I hadn’t thought about the multi PhD case.. I’ve never met one. I’d expect someone to do a post doc even if it’s far afield from their PhD.

BeetleB 8y ago

>This is missing the point of a PhD, which is to develop a capacity for doing science (or more generally hard thinking in relevant domain) These days, it is more about the ability to publish. A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a friend of mine who is wrapping up his PhD. He pointed out that not one of his colleagues is concerned whether anyone can reproduce their work. They use a home grown simulation suite which only they have access to, and is constantly being updated with the worst software practices you can think of. No one in their team believes that the tool will give the same results they did 4 years ago. The troubling part is, no one sees that as being a problem. They got their papers published, and so the SW did its job. (Should not be surprising to anyone who spends a lot of time in engineering PhD programs).

marmaduke 8y ago
But those AI programs that started this discussion would have teams of engineers to do that SW correctly. One interpretation of science is just making theories and testing them with experiments, no solid software engineering required. Another says reproducibility is important but the current incentive structure is not there yet.