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As a counter to this article I found my time as a grad student exceedingly productive and gave me great faith in the scientific institution. I definitely believ

As a counter to this article I found my time as a grad student exceedingly productive and gave me great faith in the scientific institution. I definitely believe academics are underpaid; when most of the people in my department could have easy made 500k doing ML in the valley, they were making less than 100k as post docs or 30k as grad students. Otherwise my advisors were always incredibly proud of their students, passing on their knowledge, and actively pushing them to succeed like proud parents. A lot of my colleagues went on to join other labs or even open labs of their own as PIs.

briandear 8y ago
They aren’t underpaid. Tenured professors have the ultimate job security. They also get paid sabbaticals which is fairly rare in the real world. Adjunct professors on the other hand — those are definitely underpaid, but they’re often doing that work as a side job or they’re trying to fight their way to tenure. A job from which you can’t be fired? That’s worth something. Stellar benefits? That’s worth something as well.
- Broken_Hippo 8y ago
  "Adjunct professors on the other hand — those are definitely underpaid, but they’re often doing that work as a side job or they’re trying to fight their way to tenure." This is like saying that it's OK that a job is paid poorly because the jobs are part-time. Or that it's OK to pay someone less for a second job because it is a second job. Or one group less than another group because obviously they don't need the money. Underpaid is underpaid. It doesn't matter what the reasoning is. Especially if you are getting paid less than the "full time" or "permanent" person simply because you aren't "full time". I'll also argue in the case of tenured professors: Job security isn't everything, nor is a sabbatical - and IIRC, fewer places are even offering tenure as often. The adjunct professors have little hope.
- gaius 8y ago
  Every post-doc position is wildly over-subscribed and there is fierce competition for each one. So simple economics - the law of supply and demand - says they are not underpaid, in fact if anything they are paid over the clearing price for the market.
  - JohnStrangeII 8y ago
    You're under the mistaken impression that there is a free market for postdoc positions. Postdoc salaries are fixed by government salary level tables and postdoc positions are opened as part of a planned economy. Plans range from 5 to 10 years. Moreover, universities are not companies and could not possibly be run like companies, and foundational research usually does not produce any consumable products. The effects of foundational research on economy are soften only noticeable years or decades later, sometimes (like in mathematics) centuries later. Regarding publications in foundational research as "products" is highly misleading, they contribute to a net effect in science that can hardly be quantified.
    - cbkeller 8y ago
      There are also huge variations between fields. Bio postdocs are hugely competitive and kinda brutal compared to my field, for instance.
abalone 8y ago
The author appears to be talking about comparative literature exclusively. It’s truly a misleading title. Comparative literature (or “critical theory” or “dept of rhetoric” or whatever fanciful name they’re using) is indeed the cultiest field of academia. It’s why they’re so easy to punk. (See: Sokal affairs.)
- FreakLegion 8y ago
  The sciences haven't done any better at quality control than the humanities. See: Bogdanov affair, "Who's Afraid of Peer Review?", etc.
  - jhbadger 8y ago
    Not really comparable at all. The "Social Text" affair was a major deal because "Social Text" was a major venue of postmodernism at the time, and it was a major cause of the fall of postmodernism in academia. Nobody was "fooled" by the Bogdanovs -- they were French TV personalities who managed to get a couple of bogus papers published in extremely low impact journals that hardly anyone read. Similarly with "Who's Afraid of Peer Review" -- there are thousands of minor journals out there and some aren't very picky about what they publish. In science, it is important to take note of where something is published as opposed to the mere fact that it is.
    - Mediterraneo10 8y ago
      > The "Social Text" affair was a major deal because "Social Text" was a major venue of postmodernism at the time Social Text was in fact a pretty niche venue and it was not even peer reviewed. Yes, its contents were risible and easy to lampoon, but Sokal’s feat wasn’t the crushing blow on the modern humanities that it is often presented as.
    - FreakLegion 8y ago
      Social Text wasn't a major venue (of postmodernism or anything else), and Sokal's hoax didn't cause a fall of postmodernism in academia. Far from it. When I left academia in 2009 it was still the dominant perspective, and that doesn't seem to have changed. Fish's response to Sokal is also exemplary: What sociologists of science say is that of course the world is real and independent of our observations but that accounts of the world are produced by observers and are therefore relative to their capacities, education, training, etc. It is not the world or its properties but the vocabularies in whose terms we know them that are socially constructed -- fashioned by human beings -- which is why our understanding of those properties is continually changing. Distinguishing fact from fiction is surely the business of science, but the means of doing so are not perspicuous in nature -- for if they were, there would be no work to be done. Consequently, the history of science is a record of controversies about what counts as evidence and how facts are to be established. Those who concern themselves with this history neither dispute the accomplishments of science nor deny the existence or power of scientific procedure. They just maintain and demonstrate that the nature of scientific procedure is a question continually debated in its own precincts. What results is an incredibly complex and rich story, full of honor for scientists, and this is the story sociologists of science are trying to tell and get right.
T-A 8y ago
I see this coming up on HN from time to time: happy current or recent CS grad student implicitly generalizing their experience to academia at large. The thing to keep in mind is that CS is a rare exception: it's relatively well funded and there is real demand for it from outside academia (the two things are not unrelated, of course). ML in particular is often said to have a "brain drain" problem. So obviously you can't treat people like serfs; if you try to, they'll just leave for a better private sector job. Most academic fields are nothing like that. As a rule of thumb, cultism ~ 1 / (external demand).
- ilovecaching 8y ago
  I wasn't a CS student I was a bioinformatics student in the health sciences department.
- cbkeller 8y ago
  Geologist here! It's not just CS, definitely true for us too. I can't speak for all fields, but I do know that the unemployment rate for science PhDs is virtually nil, and the industry demand is absolutely not restricted to software. For us in the Earth sciences: mining, oil/gas, environmental remediation/consulting, and the national labs are all big employers for us.

briandear 8y ago

They aren’t underpaid. Tenured professors have the ultimate job security. They also get paid sabbaticals which is fairly rare in the real world. Adjunct professors on the other hand — those are definitely underpaid, but they’re often doing that work as a side job or they’re trying to fight their way to tenure. A job from which you can’t be fired? That’s worth something. Stellar benefits? That’s worth something as well.

Broken_Hippo 8y ago
"Adjunct professors on the other hand — those are definitely underpaid, but they’re often doing that work as a side job or they’re trying to fight their way to tenure." This is like saying that it's OK that a job is paid poorly because the jobs are part-time. Or that it's OK to pay someone less for a second job because it is a second job. Or one group less than another group because obviously they don't need the money. Underpaid is underpaid. It doesn't matter what the reasoning is. Especially if you are getting paid less than the "full time" or "permanent" person simply because you aren't "full time". I'll also argue in the case of tenured professors: Job security isn't everything, nor is a sabbatical - and IIRC, fewer places are even offering tenure as often. The adjunct professors have little hope.
gaius 8y ago
Every post-doc position is wildly over-subscribed and there is fierce competition for each one. So simple economics - the law of supply and demand - says they are not underpaid, in fact if anything they are paid over the clearing price for the market.
- JohnStrangeII 8y ago
  You're under the mistaken impression that there is a free market for postdoc positions. Postdoc salaries are fixed by government salary level tables and postdoc positions are opened as part of a planned economy. Plans range from 5 to 10 years. Moreover, universities are not companies and could not possibly be run like companies, and foundational research usually does not produce any consumable products. The effects of foundational research on economy are soften only noticeable years or decades later, sometimes (like in mathematics) centuries later. Regarding publications in foundational research as "products" is highly misleading, they contribute to a net effect in science that can hardly be quantified.
  - cbkeller 8y ago
    There are also huge variations between fields. Bio postdocs are hugely competitive and kinda brutal compared to my field, for instance.

abalone 8y ago

The author appears to be talking about comparative literature exclusively. It’s truly a misleading title. Comparative literature (or “critical theory” or “dept of rhetoric” or whatever fanciful name they’re using) is indeed the cultiest field of academia. It’s why they’re so easy to punk. (See: Sokal affairs.)

FreakLegion 8y ago
The sciences haven't done any better at quality control than the humanities. See: Bogdanov affair, "Who's Afraid of Peer Review?", etc.
- jhbadger 8y ago
  Not really comparable at all. The "Social Text" affair was a major deal because "Social Text" was a major venue of postmodernism at the time, and it was a major cause of the fall of postmodernism in academia. Nobody was "fooled" by the Bogdanovs -- they were French TV personalities who managed to get a couple of bogus papers published in extremely low impact journals that hardly anyone read. Similarly with "Who's Afraid of Peer Review" -- there are thousands of minor journals out there and some aren't very picky about what they publish. In science, it is important to take note of where something is published as opposed to the mere fact that it is.
  - Mediterraneo10 8y ago
    > The "Social Text" affair was a major deal because "Social Text" was a major venue of postmodernism at the time Social Text was in fact a pretty niche venue and it was not even peer reviewed. Yes, its contents were risible and easy to lampoon, but Sokal’s feat wasn’t the crushing blow on the modern humanities that it is often presented as.
  - FreakLegion 8y ago
    Social Text wasn't a major venue (of postmodernism or anything else), and Sokal's hoax didn't cause a fall of postmodernism in academia. Far from it. When I left academia in 2009 it was still the dominant perspective, and that doesn't seem to have changed. Fish's response to Sokal is also exemplary: What sociologists of science say is that of course the world is real and independent of our observations but that accounts of the world are produced by observers and are therefore relative to their capacities, education, training, etc. It is not the world or its properties but the vocabularies in whose terms we know them that are socially constructed -- fashioned by human beings -- which is why our understanding of those properties is continually changing. Distinguishing fact from fiction is surely the business of science, but the means of doing so are not perspicuous in nature -- for if they were, there would be no work to be done. Consequently, the history of science is a record of controversies about what counts as evidence and how facts are to be established. Those who concern themselves with this history neither dispute the accomplishments of science nor deny the existence or power of scientific procedure. They just maintain and demonstrate that the nature of scientific procedure is a question continually debated in its own precincts. What results is an incredibly complex and rich story, full of honor for scientists, and this is the story sociologists of science are trying to tell and get right.

T-A 8y ago

I see this coming up on HN from time to time: happy current or recent CS grad student implicitly generalizing their experience to academia at large. The thing to keep in mind is that CS is a rare exception: it's relatively well funded and there is real demand for it from outside academia (the two things are not unrelated, of course). ML in particular is often said to have a "brain drain" problem. So obviously you can't treat people like serfs; if you try to, they'll just leave for a better private sector job. Most academic fields are nothing like that. As a rule of thumb, cultism ~ 1 / (external demand).

ilovecaching 8y ago
I wasn't a CS student I was a bioinformatics student in the health sciences department.
cbkeller 8y ago
Geologist here! It's not just CS, definitely true for us too. I can't speak for all fields, but I do know that the unemployment rate for science PhDs is virtually nil, and the industry demand is absolutely not restricted to software. For us in the Earth sciences: mining, oil/gas, environmental remediation/consulting, and the national labs are all big employers for us.