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> Most academic research is done by underpaid PhD and postdoc students for the love of science I’d hardly call the graduate papers coming out of academia equiv

> Most academic research is done by underpaid PhD and postdoc students for the love of science I’d hardly call the graduate papers coming out of academia equivalent to the level of innovation & creativity of what the engineers above described. Perhaps they’re both underpaid, but one is certainly more amazing. Hardly the same.

matthewdgreen 6y ago
You should read Rhodes’ “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” if you want to understand what incredible engineering feats academic scientists are capable of — when the people are tightly focused on achieving a single goal. You should also read Rhodes’ book if you want to understand why unguided fundamental scientific research itself is so critical, even when it doesn’t immediately seem useful to you: without the discoveries of science, nuclear fission wouldn’t have been understood. (Of course, many will disagree that the development atomic bomb is a good outcome, but that’s a very different conversation.)
- BenjiWiebe 6y ago
  I love that book. It takes a while to read but it's worth it.
brazzy 6y ago
The person I was replying to was very clearly not calling the result itself amazing, but the fact that it was achieved by people whose budgets had been cut in half and who were not well paid.
hcknwscommenter 6y ago
That's a pretty amazing comment to me. Perhaps I am biased because of all the blood sweat tears and life I spent publishing papers in academia. Generally, with the exception of certain low quality publication venues, certain fringe areas of humanities, and of course review papers, each academic paper is a new contribution to science that has never been made before. Heating and cooling something to unjam it? That's been done since the dawn of modern engineering. A neat story (and I mean it), but hardly an astounding level of innovation and creativity.
- viklove 6y ago
  This is clearly about more than just unjamming a part, but the work that was put into building the probe, sending it to the edge of the solar system, and the fact that it's still functional today.
- jonathanyc 6y ago
  Are you seriously claiming almost every academic paper in a prestigious journal demonstrates more innovation and creativity than that displayed by the deployment of the Voyager spacecraft? I strongly disagree. Remember also that a large fraction if not a majority of the Voyager team almost certainly had PhDs or even came from academia. I think we can appreciate innovation and creativity everywhere without having to make it into a genital measuring contest.
  - hcknwscommenter 6y ago
    I was responding to a comment about a story that was specifically about the unjamming by heating/cooling; a phenomenon which everyone above the age of six knows about. My comment was not a genital measuring context, nor did it have anything to do with the innovation and creativity displayed by the deployment of the Voyager space craft.

matthewdgreen 6y ago

You should read Rhodes’ “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” if you want to understand what incredible engineering feats academic scientists are capable of — when the people are tightly focused on achieving a single goal. You should also read Rhodes’ book if you want to understand why unguided fundamental scientific research itself is so critical, even when it doesn’t immediately seem useful to you: without the discoveries of science, nuclear fission wouldn’t have been understood. (Of course, many will disagree that the development atomic bomb is a good outcome, but that’s a very different conversation.)

BenjiWiebe 6y ago
I love that book. It takes a while to read but it's worth it.

brazzy 6y ago

The person I was replying to was very clearly not calling the result itself amazing, but the fact that it was achieved by people whose budgets had been cut in half and who were not well paid.

hcknwscommenter 6y ago

That's a pretty amazing comment to me. Perhaps I am biased because of all the blood sweat tears and life I spent publishing papers in academia. Generally, with the exception of certain low quality publication venues, certain fringe areas of humanities, and of course review papers, each academic paper is a new contribution to science that has never been made before. Heating and cooling something to unjam it? That's been done since the dawn of modern engineering. A neat story (and I mean it), but hardly an astounding level of innovation and creativity.

viklove 6y ago
This is clearly about more than just unjamming a part, but the work that was put into building the probe, sending it to the edge of the solar system, and the fact that it's still functional today.
jonathanyc 6y ago
Are you seriously claiming almost every academic paper in a prestigious journal demonstrates more innovation and creativity than that displayed by the deployment of the Voyager spacecraft? I strongly disagree. Remember also that a large fraction if not a majority of the Voyager team almost certainly had PhDs or even came from academia. I think we can appreciate innovation and creativity everywhere without having to make it into a genital measuring contest.
- hcknwscommenter 6y ago
  I was responding to a comment about a story that was specifically about the unjamming by heating/cooling; a phenomenon which everyone above the age of six knows about. My comment was not a genital measuring context, nor did it have anything to do with the innovation and creativity displayed by the deployment of the Voyager space craft.