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I used to work in one of the top labs doing protein folding, in fact I recognize some lab mates who survived to have their own labs in this year's CASP top ten

I used to work in one of the top labs doing protein folding, in fact I recognize some lab mates who survived to have their own labs in this year's CASP top ten ranking. Something is a bit rotten though because I'd guess about half of us burned out of academia entirely, and the state of the art at the time was regrettable. I remember one model doing rather well except the weights of the various physical forces were wrong, so much that some signs were negative and what should have been electrostatic repulsion was actually electrostatic attraction between similar charges. This was 10 years ago of course, but all of the field improvements were relatively incremental and small until AlphaFold came along. Modern academia exists to further modern academia, no more and no less. I became disillusioned of any search for truth and progress during my time there, it was really just about showing up the Baker lab at the next CASP and getting the next round of grants secured.

softwaredoug 6y ago
This is exactly my point. There is something rotten in the research labs where society is not getting return on investment for basic research. If the goal is to just produce researchers that can work at corporate research labs, then I feel we could get more bang for the buck. If the goal is to do move research in the public good, something needs to change. Maybe it’s the fact there’s too little money out there, and it causes everyone to chase meager grant money. Or that there’s too much competition between groups. Or a million other reasons. But I’d love to see it fixed and have more faith in public investment in basic science.
- gwicks56 6y ago
  From my experience working as an engineer in Academia, there is a big problem in anything AI related, in that anyone decent can instantly increase their pay by 200 -1000% just by leaving for one of the big tech companies. Half the phD students don't even bother finishing, before being given an offer they can't refuse. How can academia compete with that, given sky high student debt, an extremely uncertain path to tenure etc etc
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
  The problem is that people in academia and outside of it were saying the same thing in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00's ... so if you really want to make the claim that "society is not getting return on investment for basic research", you need to claim with a straight face that this also applies to the last 50 years of academic basic research (at least). Alternatively, explain what has changed and when.
  - softwaredoug 6y ago
    Citing increases in fraud and retractions, this article makes the case that as funding has increased, scientific quality has worsened. (Which is counter to what I guessed above!) Pursuit of scientific knowledge for its own sake replaced by obsession with grant cycles. https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2020/01/the-intellectual-and-moral-decline-in-academic-research/ https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2020/01/the-intellectual-and... But lots of other things have also changed that may or may not be causes: - many fewer tenure track positions - many more jobs in industry that require or value a 4 year or advanced degree - obtaining a college degree as a right of passage seen as increasingly essential to you g adulthood - the rise of data science: more jobs in industry that have access to lots of data and demand scientific rigor - the rise of private cloud supercomputing (is deep mind) vs, say, a public university's cluster - the obsession in some foreign countries of getting advanced degrees from American universities, creating essentially a guest visa workforce that is easily abused - rise of Big Tech which has money to throw at things like protein folding
    - raxxorrax 6y ago
      I think while funding has been increased overall due to more people in academia, the processes to acquire said funding got more complex so that a significant part of work is actually making sure the next grant can be secured. Similar situation in publishing. The research might only get a backseat. That said, this is primarily a computational problem, so the advances here might not be applicable to basic research.

softwaredoug 6y ago

This is exactly my point. There is something rotten in the research labs where society is not getting return on investment for basic research. If the goal is to just produce researchers that can work at corporate research labs, then I feel we could get more bang for the buck. If the goal is to do move research in the public good, something needs to change. Maybe it’s the fact there’s too little money out there, and it causes everyone to chase meager grant money. Or that there’s too much competition between groups. Or a million other reasons. But I’d love to see it fixed and have more faith in public investment in basic science.

gwicks56 6y ago
From my experience working as an engineer in Academia, there is a big problem in anything AI related, in that anyone decent can instantly increase their pay by 200 -1000% just by leaving for one of the big tech companies. Half the phD students don't even bother finishing, before being given an offer they can't refuse. How can academia compete with that, given sky high student debt, an extremely uncertain path to tenure etc etc
PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
The problem is that people in academia and outside of it were saying the same thing in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00's ... so if you really want to make the claim that "society is not getting return on investment for basic research", you need to claim with a straight face that this also applies to the last 50 years of academic basic research (at least). Alternatively, explain what has changed and when.
- softwaredoug 6y ago
  Citing increases in fraud and retractions, this article makes the case that as funding has increased, scientific quality has worsened. (Which is counter to what I guessed above!) Pursuit of scientific knowledge for its own sake replaced by obsession with grant cycles. https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2020/01/the-intellectual-and-moral-decline-in-academic-research/ https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2020/01/the-intellectual-and... But lots of other things have also changed that may or may not be causes: - many fewer tenure track positions - many more jobs in industry that require or value a 4 year or advanced degree - obtaining a college degree as a right of passage seen as increasingly essential to you g adulthood - the rise of data science: more jobs in industry that have access to lots of data and demand scientific rigor - the rise of private cloud supercomputing (is deep mind) vs, say, a public university's cluster - the obsession in some foreign countries of getting advanced degrees from American universities, creating essentially a guest visa workforce that is easily abused - rise of Big Tech which has money to throw at things like protein folding
  - raxxorrax 6y ago
    I think while funding has been increased overall due to more people in academia, the processes to acquire said funding got more complex so that a significant part of work is actually making sure the next grant can be secured. Similar situation in publishing. The research might only get a backseat. That said, this is primarily a computational problem, so the advances here might not be applicable to basic research.