3 ms·

Eh plenty of people pursuing science are doing it because they want to be the one to make the discovery, not because of some pure dedication to science. Sure, t

Eh plenty of people pursuing science are doing it because they want to be the one to make the discovery, not because of some pure dedication to science. Sure, that's not everyone, but it's a big enough chunk of the people that stick around. Regardless of personal intentions, it's also a fact that we have a massive oversupply of people trying to make it in academic science. Functionally the only way it is selfless then is if you are meaningfully better at science than replacement level (and again potential replacements run deep these days). This makes most people either knowingly selfish (if they are sacrificing others' wellbeing for their research anyway) or very arrogant about their intelligence level. Or naive about the system, but I don't think you'll meet many postdocs that don't know these facts. The people that stick around and grind away at research work even once any chance at a tenure track position has passed are a lot more defensible as selfless of course, but that's not really the most common situation to find in a lab. The majority are gunning for a career in academic science, even down to the poorly treated pre-PhD RA labor. Now obviously if some rich kid or someone with no personal attachments wants to fuck around in academia they should totally go for it. I just don't think selfless is the right word for that, and it's certainly not the right word for your typical academic ladder climber.

Wowfunhappy 3y ago
But I would hope academics are not doing literally the same research? In other words, are you saying that if we had fewer people working in academia, the same quantity of research would get done in the world? It's okay even if different researchers are working on similar problems, because replicability is important.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  Enough people drop out of the race, or are filtered out, that it becomes effectively zero sum. A common control in sociological studies of educational systems is to compare people who are just above a particular cutoff (say a 2.00 GPA), and just below that cutoff (say a 1.99 GPA). These people are often effectively equivalent except for one good or bad day, or one harsh or forgiving instructor. If an academic department makes 15 positions available for graduate students, it will have 15 graduate students. Regardless. Is the 16th applicant who just didn't make the cut worse than the 15th who did? Probably not. And they might have been better, or at least have been a better fit.
anonymouskimmer 3y ago
> Functionally the only way it is selfless then is if you are meaningfully better at science than replacement level (and again potential replacements run deep these days). I'm better at science than I am at the replacement job. Ergo the maximum I can contribute to the world is through science.

Wowfunhappy 3y ago

But I would hope academics are not doing literally the same research? In other words, are you saying that if we had fewer people working in academia, the same quantity of research would get done in the world? It's okay even if different researchers are working on similar problems, because replicability is important.

anonymouskimmer 3y ago
Enough people drop out of the race, or are filtered out, that it becomes effectively zero sum. A common control in sociological studies of educational systems is to compare people who are just above a particular cutoff (say a 2.00 GPA), and just below that cutoff (say a 1.99 GPA). These people are often effectively equivalent except for one good or bad day, or one harsh or forgiving instructor. If an academic department makes 15 positions available for graduate students, it will have 15 graduate students. Regardless. Is the 16th applicant who just didn't make the cut worse than the 15th who did? Probably not. And they might have been better, or at least have been a better fit.

anonymouskimmer 3y ago

> Functionally the only way it is selfless then is if you are meaningfully better at science than replacement level (and again potential replacements run deep these days). I'm better at science than I am at the replacement job. Ergo the maximum I can contribute to the world is through science.