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Here are a couple of relevant quotes from Freeman Dyson (who did not have a PhD): “Well, I think it actually is very destructive. I'm now retired, but when I w

Here are a couple of relevant quotes from Freeman Dyson (who did not have a PhD): “Well, I think it actually is very destructive. I'm now retired, but when I was a professor here [Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton], my real job was to be a psychiatric nurse. There were all these young people who came to the institute, and my job was to be there so they could cry on my shoulder and tell me what a hard time they were having. And it was a very tough situation for these young people. They come here. They have one or two years and they're supposed to do something brilliant. They're under terrible pressure — not from us, but from them. So, actually, I've had three of them who I would say were just casualties who I'm responsible for. One of them killed himself, and two of them ended up in mental institutions. And I should've been able to take care of them, but I didn't. I blame the Ph.D. system for these tragedies. And it really does destroy people. If they weren't under that kind of pressure, they could all have been happy people doing useful stuff. Anyhow, so that's my diatribe. But I really have seen that happen."

andrewl 5y ago
Here’s more from Freeman Dyson: I’m very proud of not having a Ph.D. I think the Ph.D. system is an abomination. It was invented as a system for educating German professors in the 19th century, and it works well under those conditions. It’s good for a very small number of people who are going to spend their lives being professors. But it has become now a kind of union card that you have to have in order to have a job, whether it’s being a professor or other things, and it’s quite inappropriate for that. It forces people to waste years and years of their lives sort of pretending to do research for which they’re not at all well-suited. In the end, they have this piece of paper which says they’re qualified, but it really doesn’t mean anything. The Ph.D. takes far too long and discourages women from becoming scientists, which I consider a great tragedy. So I have opposed it all my life without any success at all. And also, of course, it wastes a tremendous amount of time — especially for women, it’s particularly badly timed. If they’re doing a Ph.D., they have a conflict between raising a family or finishing the degree, which is just at the worst time — between the ages of 25 to 30 or whatever it is. It ruins the five years of their lives. And I see the difference in the business world. My daughter happens to be a businesswoman, so I meet a lot of her young friends. The life there is so much easier for women. They start a company when they’re 20; they go bust when they’re 22. [Laughs] Meanwhile, they have a kid, and nobody condemns them for going bust. If you’re in the business world, that’s what’s expected: You should go bust and then start again on something else. So it’s a much more relaxed kind of a culture. It’s also competitive, but not in such a vicious way. I think the academic world is actually much more destructive of young people. [The Ph.D. system] was designed for a job in academics. And it works really well if you really want to be an academic, and the system actually works quite well. So for people who have the gift and like to go spend their lives as scholars, it’s fine. But the trouble is that it’s become a kind of a meal ticket — you can’t get a job if you don’t have a Ph.D. So all sorts of people go into it who are quite unsuited to it. [...] Anyway, so, I’m happy that I’ve raised six kids, and not one of them is a Ph.D.
- jleyank 5y ago
  Yet Bethe had a different opinion. Some profs or mentors don’t mentor willingly or well. Some create scientific family trees that are quite extensive. Different strokes and all that.
coliveira 5y ago
I believe that's the fault of some institutions called Ivy League in the US. They want people to believe that they only do "brilliant" work, and many students really fall for it.
- andrewl 5y ago
  Being at the Institute for Advanced Study is probably worse than being in any of the Ivy League or comparable high-level universities. Among its resident scholars, besides Dyson, were Albert Einstein, John von Neumann, Kurt Gödel, and J. Robert Oppenheimer. This leads to many people who work there feeling like they don’t measure up, and are impostors. Richard Feynman noted a problem with the environment: When I was at Princeton in the 1940s I could see what happened to those great minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations whatsoever. These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves, OK? So they don’t get any ideas for a while: They have every opportunity to do something, and they’re not getting any ideas. I believe that in a situation like this a kind of guilt or depression worms inside of you, and you begin to worry about not getting any ideas. And nothing happens. Still no ideas come. Nothing happens because there’s not enough real activity and challenge: You’re not in contact with the experimental guys. You don’t have to think how to answer questions from the students. Nothing!
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

andrewl 5y ago

Here’s more from Freeman Dyson: I’m very proud of not having a Ph.D. I think the Ph.D. system is an abomination. It was invented as a system for educating German professors in the 19th century, and it works well under those conditions. It’s good for a very small number of people who are going to spend their lives being professors. But it has become now a kind of union card that you have to have in order to have a job, whether it’s being a professor or other things, and it’s quite inappropriate for that. It forces people to waste years and years of their lives sort of pretending to do research for which they’re not at all well-suited. In the end, they have this piece of paper which says they’re qualified, but it really doesn’t mean anything. The Ph.D. takes far too long and discourages women from becoming scientists, which I consider a great tragedy. So I have opposed it all my life without any success at all. And also, of course, it wastes a tremendous amount of time — especially for women, it’s particularly badly timed. If they’re doing a Ph.D., they have a conflict between raising a family or finishing the degree, which is just at the worst time — between the ages of 25 to 30 or whatever it is. It ruins the five years of their lives. And I see the difference in the business world. My daughter happens to be a businesswoman, so I meet a lot of her young friends. The life there is so much easier for women. They start a company when they’re 20; they go bust when they’re 22. [Laughs] Meanwhile, they have a kid, and nobody condemns them for going bust. If you’re in the business world, that’s what’s expected: You should go bust and then start again on something else. So it’s a much more relaxed kind of a culture. It’s also competitive, but not in such a vicious way. I think the academic world is actually much more destructive of young people. [The Ph.D. system] was designed for a job in academics. And it works really well if you really want to be an academic, and the system actually works quite well. So for people who have the gift and like to go spend their lives as scholars, it’s fine. But the trouble is that it’s become a kind of a meal ticket — you can’t get a job if you don’t have a Ph.D. So all sorts of people go into it who are quite unsuited to it. [...] Anyway, so, I’m happy that I’ve raised six kids, and not one of them is a Ph.D.

jleyank 5y ago
Yet Bethe had a different opinion. Some profs or mentors don’t mentor willingly or well. Some create scientific family trees that are quite extensive. Different strokes and all that.

coliveira 5y ago

I believe that's the fault of some institutions called Ivy League in the US. They want people to believe that they only do "brilliant" work, and many students really fall for it.

andrewl 5y ago
Being at the Institute for Advanced Study is probably worse than being in any of the Ivy League or comparable high-level universities. Among its resident scholars, besides Dyson, were Albert Einstein, John von Neumann, Kurt Gödel, and J. Robert Oppenheimer. This leads to many people who work there feeling like they don’t measure up, and are impostors. Richard Feynman noted a problem with the environment: When I was at Princeton in the 1940s I could see what happened to those great minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations whatsoever. These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves, OK? So they don’t get any ideas for a while: They have every opportunity to do something, and they’re not getting any ideas. I believe that in a situation like this a kind of guilt or depression worms inside of you, and you begin to worry about not getting any ideas. And nothing happens. Still no ideas come. Nothing happens because there’s not enough real activity and challenge: You’re not in contact with the experimental guys. You don’t have to think how to answer questions from the students. Nothing!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]