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This is a fascinating look inside the academic system. Eric, a question if I may: Is there room for a modern PhD that values breadth over depth? The goal of

by pmohun 6y ago

This is a fascinating look inside the academic system. Eric, a question if I may: Is there room for a modern PhD that values breadth over depth? The goal of completing a Ph.D. program is to become the most knowledgable person in the world about a specific topic. While this is a valuable goal for disciplines that reward specialization, it does not provide enough flexibility for autodidacts with a range of interests. A P.h.D. typically takes between 3 and 6 years of self-directed study. If candidates spend between 35 to 70 hours per week, this amounts to 5,250 hours on the low-end and 21,000 hours at the extreme end. Of course, not all of this time is spent on research. In fact, modern P.h.D. students spend more time than necessary dealing with administrative functions like teaching, grading, and paperwork for the university. What would you recommend to someone planning their own "personal PhD"? That is, four to six years of self-directed research on a specific topic. This is something I think about often. Many citizen scientists like Franklin, Edison, and Darwin were not the result of PhD programs but instead curious professionals who conducted independent research. Other specific questions: - What is a suitable replacement for the role of advisor? Is there a representative person outside of academia who would provide the same type of advice? - What type of fields are best suited to personal PhDs? Low capital investment (ie, no expensive lab equipment) seems like a constraint? Like I said, I think about this often and have written more on the topic here: https://sundayscaries.substack.com/p/the-lifetime-curriculum-revisited https://sundayscaries.substack.com/p/the-lifetime-curriculum...

angrais 6y ago
FYI: neither of those three well known individuals were regarded as what we now call citizen scientists. They were a politician, inventor, and an academic. This is very very different to citizen science.
- fuzzfactor 6y ago
  I would regard them as prominent gentlemen scientists of their time, to say the least. For every prominent man or woman of science, there have always been countless others having equal or better technology, whose recognition falls below an arbitrary media-determined threshold for eminence, whether or not eminence was on the agenda. That much of it is a popularity contest. There's rock stars and there's all the rest of the loud guitar players. I accept a citizen scientist as toward the lesser end of academic credentials and lacking widespread recognition of their leadership or capability, but no shortage of talent or potential. And perhaps leveraging lesser resources or overcoming the same common limitations that otherwise encumber their equally ambitious peers, who do not become scientists at all even if they wanted to. By good fortune or not. The citizen-scientist is an everyman of some kind. Well, you gotta draw the line somewhere. At the interface between citizen-scientists and citizen-not-quite-scientists, its a pretty fuzzy line and there's equal talent on both sides. Similar talent but the more rarefied community has the actual accomplishments. OTOH at the other end of the spectrum are the most prominent scientists and the fuzzy interface between the few of them and the next tier of equal talents having top credentials but insignificant recognition by comparison. Similar accomplishments but the more rarefied community has the actual recognition. It's much less common for the most prominent in the 21st century to be a gentleman scientist of our time anyway. In between the top credentials and the lesser ones there's got to be an even more fuzzy line where the gentleman scientist and the citizen scientist can't tell which side of the line they're on their dang self.
abdullahkhalids 6y ago
> Is there room for a modern PhD that values breadth over depth? How little depth? You can read a whole bunch of popular books on a wide variety of subjects during your lifetime, and that's fine, but its very low depth. You can't do much with that knowledge. I think you need to realize is that a PhD is not a "study". That is a Bachelors/Masters program typically, where you mostly consume the knowledge of others. A PhD is about becoming a knowledge creator. You can become a knowledge creator without a PhD, no question about that. All you have to do is learn some field of study (via online courses or going through textbooks), do enough literature review to identify an unsolved problem (listen to technical talks), and finally solve it by dedicating a year of your life to it. You can then move on to a different area if you are bored of this area. > modern P.h.D. students spend more time than necessary dealing with administrative functions like teaching, grading, and paperwork for the university This is a problem of economics. The students who are on fully funded scholarships don't do any teaching or grading, and I am sure anyone can handle the 10 hours of paperwork per year. Either you can be good enough to get that scholarship or you can save/borrow 125K and do a Phd unburdened by anything.
082349872349872 6y ago
If the aim is breadth, why target a field? Matt Might illustrates "knowledge"[1] in two dimensions. Given that its true dimensionality is much higher, random walks in knowledge space, unconstrained by focus[2], will almost certainly never self-intersect: breadth "for free." [1] Here come I, my name is Jowett / All there is to know, I know it / I am Master of this College / And what I don’t know isn’t knowledge. [2] My interest space has obvious attractors, but I'm not pursuing breadth, so I'm fine with this situation. Bonus track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaLa7NboOAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaLa7NboOAw хочу всё знать = I want to know everything (in the soviet context, it was also the title of a kid's TV show)
xenonite 6y ago
A PhD usually focuses on depth because you need to find new results, which usually isn't possible with breadth alone. A nice visualization: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/
yiyus 6y ago
> The goal of completing a Ph.D. program is to become the most knowledgable person in the world about a specific topic. While this is a valuable goal for disciplines that reward specialization, it does not provide enough flexibility for autodidacts with a range of interests. This is generally true, but it is not a rule written in stone. One word: interdisciplinary. For example, I work in a field which lays in the middle between materials science and mechanical engineering. My day to day work is mostly programming, but I also need a strong background on experimental methods and fundamental physics (also, math and statistics, lots of that stuff people say they study but never need in their careers). We need many people like this. We need mathematicians who can interpret experimental results. We need engineers who can question "fundamental" laws. We need scientists who are good programmers and are not afraid of complicated equations. In my department, jacks of all trades are a very valuable asset. I am also of the opinion that people with a broad range of interests usually have more original ideas. People very focused in some field do very important work, and find very good jobs when they finish, but important advancement usually comes from thinking-out-of-the-box people.

by pmohun 6y ago

angrais 6y ago

FYI: neither of those three well known individuals were regarded as what we now call citizen scientists. They were a politician, inventor, and an academic. This is very very different to citizen science.

fuzzfactor 6y ago
I would regard them as prominent gentlemen scientists of their time, to say the least. For every prominent man or woman of science, there have always been countless others having equal or better technology, whose recognition falls below an arbitrary media-determined threshold for eminence, whether or not eminence was on the agenda. That much of it is a popularity contest. There's rock stars and there's all the rest of the loud guitar players. I accept a citizen scientist as toward the lesser end of academic credentials and lacking widespread recognition of their leadership or capability, but no shortage of talent or potential. And perhaps leveraging lesser resources or overcoming the same common limitations that otherwise encumber their equally ambitious peers, who do not become scientists at all even if they wanted to. By good fortune or not. The citizen-scientist is an everyman of some kind. Well, you gotta draw the line somewhere. At the interface between citizen-scientists and citizen-not-quite-scientists, its a pretty fuzzy line and there's equal talent on both sides. Similar talent but the more rarefied community has the actual accomplishments. OTOH at the other end of the spectrum are the most prominent scientists and the fuzzy interface between the few of them and the next tier of equal talents having top credentials but insignificant recognition by comparison. Similar accomplishments but the more rarefied community has the actual recognition. It's much less common for the most prominent in the 21st century to be a gentleman scientist of our time anyway. In between the top credentials and the lesser ones there's got to be an even more fuzzy line where the gentleman scientist and the citizen scientist can't tell which side of the line they're on their dang self.

abdullahkhalids 6y ago

> Is there room for a modern PhD that values breadth over depth? How little depth? You can read a whole bunch of popular books on a wide variety of subjects during your lifetime, and that's fine, but its very low depth. You can't do much with that knowledge. I think you need to realize is that a PhD is not a "study". That is a Bachelors/Masters program typically, where you mostly consume the knowledge of others. A PhD is about becoming a knowledge creator. You can become a knowledge creator without a PhD, no question about that. All you have to do is learn some field of study (via online courses or going through textbooks), do enough literature review to identify an unsolved problem (listen to technical talks), and finally solve it by dedicating a year of your life to it. You can then move on to a different area if you are bored of this area. > modern P.h.D. students spend more time than necessary dealing with administrative functions like teaching, grading, and paperwork for the university This is a problem of economics. The students who are on fully funded scholarships don't do any teaching or grading, and I am sure anyone can handle the 10 hours of paperwork per year. Either you can be good enough to get that scholarship or you can save/borrow 125K and do a Phd unburdened by anything.

082349872349872 6y ago

If the aim is breadth, why target a field? Matt Might illustrates "knowledge"[1] in two dimensions. Given that its true dimensionality is much higher, random walks in knowledge space, unconstrained by focus[2], will almost certainly never self-intersect: breadth "for free." [1] Here come I, my name is Jowett / All there is to know, I know it / I am Master of this College / And what I don’t know isn’t knowledge. [2] My interest space has obvious attractors, but I'm not pursuing breadth, so I'm fine with this situation. Bonus track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaLa7NboOAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaLa7NboOAw хочу всё знать = I want to know everything (in the soviet context, it was also the title of a kid's TV show)

xenonite 6y ago

A PhD usually focuses on depth because you need to find new results, which usually isn't possible with breadth alone. A nice visualization: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

yiyus 6y ago

> The goal of completing a Ph.D. program is to become the most knowledgable person in the world about a specific topic. While this is a valuable goal for disciplines that reward specialization, it does not provide enough flexibility for autodidacts with a range of interests. This is generally true, but it is not a rule written in stone. One word: interdisciplinary. For example, I work in a field which lays in the middle between materials science and mechanical engineering. My day to day work is mostly programming, but I also need a strong background on experimental methods and fundamental physics (also, math and statistics, lots of that stuff people say they study but never need in their careers). We need many people like this. We need mathematicians who can interpret experimental results. We need engineers who can question "fundamental" laws. We need scientists who are good programmers and are not afraid of complicated equations. In my department, jacks of all trades are a very valuable asset. I am also of the opinion that people with a broad range of interests usually have more original ideas. People very focused in some field do very important work, and find very good jobs when they finish, but important advancement usually comes from thinking-out-of-the-box people.