5 ms·

>It's an illusion to expect that every researcher can pump out multiple really interesting non-boring papers every year. So we pretend. We write, we cite, we pr

by Bakary 6y ago

>It's an illusion to expect that every researcher can pump out multiple really interesting non-boring papers every year. So we pretend. We write, we cite, we present, overiflate, overpromise etc. It must look like there is steady hard noble work and toil. It's like a ritual. The scientists are writing all these papers so tax payers can sleep well that their money is paid for hard work. The flip-side to this is that there is a glut of moderately motivated scientists and PhD candidates. As a result, the demand for conferences and citations is self-sustaining to meet the expectations of millions of people wanting to enter the academic world without a clear plan beyond joining the world itself. It's as though the English-major-to-professor cycle has also become a reality in the hard sciences.

semi-extrinsic 6y ago
In 1916, J.J. Thomson (as in Thomson scattering; discoverer of the electron) said it perfectly [1]: “If you pay a man a salary for doing research, he and you will want to have something to point to at the end of the year to show that the money has not been wasted. In promising work of the highest class, however, results do not come in this regular fashion, in fact years may pass without any tangible result being obtained, and the position of the paid worker would be very embarrassing and he would naturally take to work on a lower, or at any rate a different plane where he could be sure of getting year by year tangible results which would justify his salary. The position is this: You want one kind of research, but, if you pay a man to do it, it will drive him to research of a different kind. The only thing to do is to pay him for doing something else and give him enough leisure to do research for the love of it." [1] https://archive.org/details/b29932208 https://archive.org/details/b29932208 - see pages 198-200, ref HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21388715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21388715
- Bakary 6y ago
  I was thinking more along the lines of people who are not suited to do research in the first place. This will either be those who join the academic world out of inertia following their educational path or class/cultural pressure, or those who dislike the general labor market and want to enter the academic world due to its particularities. On a speculative note: I believe it's yet another argument in favor of UBI
  - frongpik 6y ago
    I'd assign scientists a "pension" every time they make a worthy discovery. That pension would be a monthly payment of a fixed dollar amount, it would be inalienable and paid for the rest of the scientist's life regardless of other achievements. Publishing a minor, but worthy, paper would give a 100 usd/month grant. Getting a Nobel prize would give, say, 1 million a year. However the deflation would gradually erase value of the grants.
    - seotut2 6y ago
      How would that fix the actual problem? And how do you judge what is a worthy discovery and what isn't? As parent said, UBI would probably fix the incentive scheme, your solution wouldn't. You need to decouple the reward from the result so that research is done out of sheer curiosity and love of science.
      - andi999 6y ago
        You cant decouple this (fully) with UBI. Only a little research is done at a desk, a lot need equipment, sometimes very expensive. With UBI you just get the time but not the stuff.
    - Too 6y ago
      This was the original intention of patents. Let market value decide if the discovery was worthy and let inventor earn from license of it. We all know that's not how it works today though thanks to sloppy patent office and abusing patent trolls.
  - derbOac 6y ago
    I kinda would suggest the problem in some ways is the opposite, that even people who are well-suited to what academics should be are being driven out. It's such a mess at the moment that it's not really possible to continue out of inertia. Even if you're well-suited to research and discovery at some level, and motivated, it's a soul-crushing experience because at every step you're incentivized toward something else.
- roenxi 6y ago
  I basically mirror Thomson's opinion but there is are other frames on the thinking. Eg, as paying someone to demonstrate a deep understanding of a topic and articulate the uncertainties. That is different from traditional research because they aren't being asked to do anything exactly new. But in practice that is what I think the better researchers actually do. Maybe there is a clue in the name "re-search". Epistemologically I don't think it is possible to set out to discover something that isn't already known to exist, so the justification for paying people would best be for evidence that they were searching rather than if they find something.
- andi999 6y ago
  This is a great quote. Thinking of Einstein working at the patent office...
danielheath 6y ago
Perhaps it varies by specialty/region, but I have a good friend in the sciences here in Australia; funding has dried right up. This year, less than 10% of NHMRC grant applications got approved, and of the ones approved most spent nearly as much time on grant applications as they did on the real work. Anyone who is only moderately motivated has retrained, because working for low pay half of the year is not appealing to anyone who can pass any doctorate program. Even if you took the position that only the good ones are getting funded, spending 50% of your 'good' researchers time is a tragic waste of human ability.

by Bakary 6y ago

semi-extrinsic 6y ago

In 1916, J.J. Thomson (as in Thomson scattering; discoverer of the electron) said it perfectly [1]: “If you pay a man a salary for doing research, he and you will want to have something to point to at the end of the year to show that the money has not been wasted. In promising work of the highest class, however, results do not come in this regular fashion, in fact years may pass without any tangible result being obtained, and the position of the paid worker would be very embarrassing and he would naturally take to work on a lower, or at any rate a different plane where he could be sure of getting year by year tangible results which would justify his salary. The position is this: You want one kind of research, but, if you pay a man to do it, it will drive him to research of a different kind. The only thing to do is to pay him for doing something else and give him enough leisure to do research for the love of it." [1] https://archive.org/details/b29932208 https://archive.org/details/b29932208 - see pages 198-200, ref HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21388715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21388715

Bakary 6y ago
I was thinking more along the lines of people who are not suited to do research in the first place. This will either be those who join the academic world out of inertia following their educational path or class/cultural pressure, or those who dislike the general labor market and want to enter the academic world due to its particularities. On a speculative note: I believe it's yet another argument in favor of UBI
- frongpik 6y ago
  I'd assign scientists a "pension" every time they make a worthy discovery. That pension would be a monthly payment of a fixed dollar amount, it would be inalienable and paid for the rest of the scientist's life regardless of other achievements. Publishing a minor, but worthy, paper would give a 100 usd/month grant. Getting a Nobel prize would give, say, 1 million a year. However the deflation would gradually erase value of the grants.
  - seotut2 6y ago
    How would that fix the actual problem? And how do you judge what is a worthy discovery and what isn't? As parent said, UBI would probably fix the incentive scheme, your solution wouldn't. You need to decouple the reward from the result so that research is done out of sheer curiosity and love of science.
    - andi999 6y ago
      You cant decouple this (fully) with UBI. Only a little research is done at a desk, a lot need equipment, sometimes very expensive. With UBI you just get the time but not the stuff.
  - Too 6y ago
    This was the original intention of patents. Let market value decide if the discovery was worthy and let inventor earn from license of it. We all know that's not how it works today though thanks to sloppy patent office and abusing patent trolls.
- derbOac 6y ago
  I kinda would suggest the problem in some ways is the opposite, that even people who are well-suited to what academics should be are being driven out. It's such a mess at the moment that it's not really possible to continue out of inertia. Even if you're well-suited to research and discovery at some level, and motivated, it's a soul-crushing experience because at every step you're incentivized toward something else.
roenxi 6y ago
I basically mirror Thomson's opinion but there is are other frames on the thinking. Eg, as paying someone to demonstrate a deep understanding of a topic and articulate the uncertainties. That is different from traditional research because they aren't being asked to do anything exactly new. But in practice that is what I think the better researchers actually do. Maybe there is a clue in the name "re-search". Epistemologically I don't think it is possible to set out to discover something that isn't already known to exist, so the justification for paying people would best be for evidence that they were searching rather than if they find something.
andi999 6y ago
This is a great quote. Thinking of Einstein working at the patent office...

danielheath 6y ago

Perhaps it varies by specialty/region, but I have a good friend in the sciences here in Australia; funding has dried right up. This year, less than 10% of NHMRC grant applications got approved, and of the ones approved most spent nearly as much time on grant applications as they did on the real work. Anyone who is only moderately motivated has retrained, because working for low pay half of the year is not appealing to anyone who can pass any doctorate program. Even if you took the position that only the good ones are getting funded, spending 50% of your 'good' researchers time is a tragic waste of human ability.