4 ms·

IMHO the big problem in experimental sciences is what the article kindly describes as power imbalances. I'd call it perhaps neofeudalism. I've seen many cases

IMHO the big problem in experimental sciences is what the article kindly describes as power imbalances. I'd call it perhaps neofeudalism. I've seen many cases where principal investigators / professors are completely disconnected from research, including an absolute lack of any basic knowledge related to the field. They are just middlemen. For someone coming from pure mathematics, where professors routinely come up with great results themselves, this was incredibly shocking. Those I've met who don't know much always run the same scheme. They have a few postdocs doing all work and writing all grant proposals, but never getting their names on them. They always work towards some vague promotion that never comes. Whenever they obtain any good result, the professor or principal investigator will take all credit. Usually they will get diluted quickly, by simply pushing follow up experiments to others. Bell Labs, MRC LMB and Cold Spring Harbor were somewhat successful in preventing this kind of middlemen behavior. Among other things, they banned anyone from supervising more than 5 people. It worked.

dgb23 6y ago
Seniority shouldn’t just imply power, but responsibility over others. A master should be judged by the success of his apprentice just as much as his own skill. It’s saddening to see that people are being exploited in such a direct, obvious way. And it just happily goes on?
mattkrause 6y ago
Outside of a class, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked for any feedback about a professor, program, or department, neither as a grad student nor postdoc. If I were king of academia, I’d make this an important part of hiring and funding decisions. Right now, individual fellowships to grad students and postdocs are scored, in part, on the “training environment” but weirdly, research grants to a professor (to hire grad students and postdocs) are not. This would be an easy thing to flip. Faculty applicants could submit a letter from a trainee as part of their package too.

dgb23 6y ago

Seniority shouldn’t just imply power, but responsibility over others. A master should be judged by the success of his apprentice just as much as his own skill. It’s saddening to see that people are being exploited in such a direct, obvious way. And it just happily goes on?

mattkrause 6y ago

Outside of a class, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked for any feedback about a professor, program, or department, neither as a grad student nor postdoc. If I were king of academia, I’d make this an important part of hiring and funding decisions. Right now, individual fellowships to grad students and postdocs are scored, in part, on the “training environment” but weirdly, research grants to a professor (to hire grad students and postdocs) are not. This would be an easy thing to flip. Faculty applicants could submit a letter from a trainee as part of their package too.