3 ms·

Most people don't have the luxury of tenure. Frankly, most people don't have the luxury of a single career that's well paying throughout their professional life

Most people don't have the luxury of tenure. Frankly, most people don't have the luxury of a single career that's well paying throughout their professional life. If funding dried up tomorrow and every number theory professor was out on their ear, that wouldn't be a bait and switch. That would be a uniquely nice and pleasant situation for them coming to an end. It's probably also good to contextualize this historically. The NSF has only existed since 1950. The high degree of funding for pure math let alone the rest of science and engineering could easily be a historical blip. I don't really care what happens to people who are currently employed doing some kind of useless research in academia. Indeed, they got hired for it. I'm simply pointing out that it's totally fair and reasonable for anyone to ask whether it's a good idea to employ people this way. Your earlier comment seems to suggest that you don't think it's OK for people to call this into question. I'm also not particularly worried about it. I'm not sure how much money IAS gets, but my guess is that DARPA and the DOE get a hell of a lot more, which (at least in my opinion ;-) ) is good.

13415 3y ago
It may be fair but it's definitely not reasonable. Progress in mathematics has foreshadowed practical applicability sometimes by centuries. It's short-sighted to consider applications outside of mathematics in the hiring of mathematicians. In that context, it's worth noting that research mathematicians almost always mean "applications to other fields of mathematics" when they talk about the applicability of their research.
- sfpotter 3y ago
  I don't agree. You're basically sticking your head in the sand saying that because there have been unanticipated benefits sometimes hundreds of years later, we can't even attempt to decide what research is valuable. If the public is paying for research, it is both fair and reasonable to ask questions about its utility. It's as simple as that.
  - maleldil 3y ago
    > it is both fair and reasonable to ask questions about its utility. What questions, though? How do we know that these questions are well-calibrated for the long-tail cases that end up being valuable centuries later?
chongli 3y ago
It’s totally fine if you want to say “defund pure mathematics!” I was complaining about the bait-and-switch people do when they take someone who was hired to do pure mathematics and then demand applications from them. It’s disingenuous and unfair. Likewise for the superstar researcher who is demanded to teach!
- sfpotter 3y ago
  I never said we should defund pure math. How many pure mathematicians have gotten tenure in math departments and were subsequently forced to work on "applications"? Do you have any actual examples? How many superstar researchers have been forced to teach against their will? If they're working as a regular, tenure-track professor, then teaching is part of their job. The word doctor comes from the Latin word for teacher!
  - chongli 3y ago
    You didn’t say “defund pure mathematics” but you implied it with your original statement: A mathematician or scientist working on something terribly narrow and abstruse is arguably only working on something in service of making themselves happy and fulfilled. Since they are frequently supported by taxpayer money, asking whether what they're working on is worth that expense is totally legitimate To me this reads as “pure mathematics is a taxpayer-funded hobby that provides no value to society.” Is that an unfair reading? I don’t know how else to parse the statement that mathematicians are ”arguably only working on something in service of making themselves happy and fulfilled.” If that is what they’re doing then why shouldn’t they be defunded? As for teaching, plenty of pure mathematicians do teach graduate students. Asking a world-leading number theorist to teach first year algebra class is silly though. Universities hire dedicated teaching faculty for those courses. Many of the expert researchers are terrible at teaching. I also want to add that the reason universities covet superstar researchers (in any field) is because they bring in grant money (paying for themselves and then some) and because research elevates the profile of the school in the world rankings. The best schools have the best researchers but that doesn’t mean they provide the best education. Trying to fix this is an enormous challenge because you’ve got to tackle the issue of schools competing against each other for students. The losing schools are going bankrupt [1]. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/queens-university-budget-deficit-fears-1.7097922 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/queens-university-budg...

13415 3y ago

It may be fair but it's definitely not reasonable. Progress in mathematics has foreshadowed practical applicability sometimes by centuries. It's short-sighted to consider applications outside of mathematics in the hiring of mathematicians. In that context, it's worth noting that research mathematicians almost always mean "applications to other fields of mathematics" when they talk about the applicability of their research.

sfpotter 3y ago
I don't agree. You're basically sticking your head in the sand saying that because there have been unanticipated benefits sometimes hundreds of years later, we can't even attempt to decide what research is valuable. If the public is paying for research, it is both fair and reasonable to ask questions about its utility. It's as simple as that.
- maleldil 3y ago
  > it is both fair and reasonable to ask questions about its utility. What questions, though? How do we know that these questions are well-calibrated for the long-tail cases that end up being valuable centuries later?

chongli 3y ago

It’s totally fine if you want to say “defund pure mathematics!” I was complaining about the bait-and-switch people do when they take someone who was hired to do pure mathematics and then demand applications from them. It’s disingenuous and unfair. Likewise for the superstar researcher who is demanded to teach!

sfpotter 3y ago
I never said we should defund pure math. How many pure mathematicians have gotten tenure in math departments and were subsequently forced to work on "applications"? Do you have any actual examples? How many superstar researchers have been forced to teach against their will? If they're working as a regular, tenure-track professor, then teaching is part of their job. The word doctor comes from the Latin word for teacher!
- chongli 3y ago
  You didn’t say “defund pure mathematics” but you implied it with your original statement: A mathematician or scientist working on something terribly narrow and abstruse is arguably only working on something in service of making themselves happy and fulfilled. Since they are frequently supported by taxpayer money, asking whether what they're working on is worth that expense is totally legitimate To me this reads as “pure mathematics is a taxpayer-funded hobby that provides no value to society.” Is that an unfair reading? I don’t know how else to parse the statement that mathematicians are ”arguably only working on something in service of making themselves happy and fulfilled.” If that is what they’re doing then why shouldn’t they be defunded? As for teaching, plenty of pure mathematicians do teach graduate students. Asking a world-leading number theorist to teach first year algebra class is silly though. Universities hire dedicated teaching faculty for those courses. Many of the expert researchers are terrible at teaching. I also want to add that the reason universities covet superstar researchers (in any field) is because they bring in grant money (paying for themselves and then some) and because research elevates the profile of the school in the world rankings. The best schools have the best researchers but that doesn’t mean they provide the best education. Trying to fix this is an enormous challenge because you’ve got to tackle the issue of schools competing against each other for students. The losing schools are going bankrupt [1]. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/queens-university-budget-deficit-fears-1.7097922 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/queens-university-budg...