Do scientists really need a PhD?

[Mackenzie Cowell]

"Given the increasing rigidity and length of the Western academic pipeline — which now extends so far beyond the PhD that the average age for first-time principal investigators on grants from the US National Institutes of Health is 42..." 

- http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7285/full/464007a.html

A response by one of my friends, a PhD-track student:

"I think that it’s incredibly valuable to give young scientists more autonomy over their work, but I think that in the end if you want to be the one asking the tough questions and designing the latest methods, you have to get those letters behind your name. which is, you know, why I’m trying to do it."

- http://hoppzor.com/post/426573111/do-scientists-need-a-phd

I guess I see a PhD as an opportunity to (1) be paid to work in a (2) well-equipped lab to (3) learn about and do scientific research (4) with really smart peers.  I see diybio as a way of exploring alternate models for providing 1-4.  It's perfectly reasonable today to imagine a non-academic professional setting up a low-cost lab of used equipment in their garage and learning how to use it in his or her free time at nights and weekends.  Or visiting a local community wetlab.  That's 1 - 2 (and 3).  And I hope we can improve the mailing list and other online resources to improve 3 - 4.

So the big problem with decentralized biotechnology I see is not in infrastructure or salary costs, but in education and collaboration resources.  In effect, it's the same challenges faced by amateur mathematicians.  What examples exist of amateur mathematicians contributing to PhD-level mathematics?  In other words, why do mathematicians need to get PhDs?

--
+1.231.313.9062 / m...@diybio.org / @100ideas

[Mark Cidade]

PhDs are most impressive to those who don't have one and know nothing about the field of study for which someone got the PhD. Given how much it costs to get a PhD in biology and how easy and quick it is for someone passionate about biology to surpass the PhD level, it is hardly worth it. Passionate biologists are willing to work for a lot less if they can work on projects sooner than someone whose soul is sucked away in school with very little time out on the field or working on personal ideas due to fact-checking a long thesis that no one else really reads. 

M.

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[leaking pen]

The most derisive treatment of those three letters I see is by other
PHD's. I really don't think its necessary, and I would like to see an
alternative "grading system" as it were.

Alex

[Jack Shultz]

There are many alternatives to a PhD. I can tell you my story, I
attended a 2 year masters program called a Professional Science
Masters. It has been two years since I completed that program and now
I am in the process of starting a biotechnology company with someone
who has a PhD. I will say that not everyone in science needs a PhD,
but you need some people to work with who do have these higher
degrees, just as PhDs need people with unique skill sets that are not
taught in academic programs.

If you are interested in PSM, here is a short description.
The Professional Science Master's (PSM) is an innovative, new graduate
degree designed to allow students to pursue advanced training in
science or mathematics, while simultaneously developing workplace
skills highly valued by employers. PSM programs consist of two years
of academic training in an emerging or interdisciplinary area, along
with a professional component that may include internships and
"cross-training" in workplace skills, such as business,
communications, and regulatory affairs. All have been developed in
concert with employers and are designed to dovetail into present and
future professional career opportunities.
http://www.sciencemasters.com/

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Jack

http://drugdiscoveryathome.com
http://hydrogenathome.org

[Andrew Hessel]

Fascinating.

Personally, I look at learning as a lifelong activity and I generally ignore titles in favor of youth, ability, open-mindedness, and passion.  There's no singular path for everyone.  This said, PhDs are becoming less attractive as completion time has lengthened and student debtloads have grown.  Academic salaries aren't stellar, grant cycles are slow, and the pots of money have more hands reaching into them.  Great to see alternative paths being explored inside and outside of institutions.

[Cory Tobin]

> Given how much it costs to
> get a PhD in biology and how easy and quick it is for someone passionate
> about biology to surpass the PhD level, it is hardly worth it.

Expensive to whom? Most science grad students get paid to go to
school; full tuition plus stipend.

Also, this week in Nature there was an article discussing this topic...
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7285/full/464007a.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27846113/Do-scientists-really-need-a-PhD

-Cory

[leaking pen]

Good for them. I haven't been able to qualify for anything, I haven't
yet finished my ASSOCIATES due to lack of money and having to work
full time to support myself. And I'm 29.

Alex

[Jack Shultz]

I applied several times and I think they rejected me because I had too
many new ideas.

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[Mark Cidade]

It's hard enough financially for some students to even get to grad!

[Meredith L. Patterson]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:32 PM, Mackenzie Cowell <m...@diybio.org> wrote:
> What examples exist of
> amateur mathematicians contributing to PhD-level mathematics?  In other
> words, why do mathematicians need to get PhDs?

As with the hard sciences, this happened more often in the 1800s and
early 1900s. Perhaps my most favourite example is Evariste Galois,
founder of group theory, who famously left college for politics (while
attempting to make money on the side teaching algebra classes) and was
shot in a duel at the age of twenty. There are also some quite famous
examples of students who went on to their PhDs contributing to the
field early in their studies, such as George Dantzig, who as a
graduate student solved two previously unsolved statistics problems
because he thought they were homework assignments.

However, the phenomenon continues today, especially in computer
science. Many advances in cryptography, networks, and even programming
language theory have been made by amateurs and students. I think that
as functional languages like Haskell grow, we'll start to see advances
in category theory and perhaps even computability theory from
non-PhDs.

I've noticed that a lot of these recent advances come from boundary
states: between two subfields, between the theoretical and the
practical, between the proven-in-theory and the not-yet-implemented.
Entire new fields get created this way (for instance, anonymity and
privacy).

But, well, for mathematics all you need is the inclination and the
time; it is possible to get oneself to a professional level in both
mathematics and computer science with very little in the way of
structured training, particularly with the resources available on the
net these days. (I have told myself many times that I'm going to learn
partial differential equations via OpenCourseWare ... there's just so
much other stuff on my plate.) Learning the theory is not so difficult
for biology and chemistry, though the practice is more complicated;
there is a barrier to entry in terms of equipment, primarily financial
but in many ways legal as well.

But, y'know, that's what we're working on and stuff.

Cheers,
--mlp

[Nathan McCorkle]

What about having too little to present for review???

--
Nathan McCorkle
Rochester Institute of Technology
College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics

[Kyle Stratis]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 4:48 PM, Mark Cidade <marx...@gmail.com> wrote:

It's hard enough financially for some students to even get to grad!

You're telling me! I'm the first person in my immediate family to go to a university, and because of the lack of money to properly plan for such an investment, I'm already heavily in debt. Graduate school may not be an option for me until much later in life. Hopefully I'll be able to get a job with a good company that invests in their employees, but we shall see. Do any of you have any experience with entering industry and later getting your graduate degree? My personal background is a psychology major focusing more on the neuroscience side of things (the major is very broad at my university, as I'm sure it is at most others), possibly a minor in computer science, and a heavy engineering background (my first two years I was an electrical engineering student and was already taking many of the engineering classes, along with the required math and physics background). 

Kyle Stratis

[Cory Tobin]

As a phd student myself, here are some of the pros and cons from my perspective:

Pros:
(1) I get hands on training from experts
(2) I get to do research with cutting-edge equipment on someone else's dime
(3) Networking with other scientists is really easy if I can say, "I'm
a grad student in Professor Smith's lab"
(4) The job market sucks right now and the NIH gives me a paycheck every month

Cons:
(1) Unless you want to be a professor, no one really cares too much
about the three letters before your name
(2) It's A LOT of work (12+ hours a day)
(3) It takes 4+ years
(4) It's very difficult to support a family with the stipend
(5) It's difficult to get into without a BS regardless of how many
text books you have read. (Experience in industry or as a lab tech
can negate this requirement)
(6) I could be earning a lot more money working for a company
(assuming I can get a job)
(7) Girls aren't impressed with the pickup line "Hi, I'm a student who
earns less than minimum wage"

Overall, if you don't have any dependents and don't mind pulling
all-nighters and living on a tight budget, it's a lot of fun.

-Cory

[Mark Cidade]

I'm a Canadian that worked for Microsoft in Washington State without ANY degree! The company did offer to pay for my tuition if I chose to go to school part-time.

M.

--

[Bob Keyes]

The value of a PhD really depends on what you want to do, and how good of a student you are.

If you're in a place like Boston, there's so many people with degrees around, that you may find it difficult competing when you have only a BS or MS. Even having a PhD, you may find yourself being passed over for people who have their degrees from more prestigious universities, or people who have post-doctoral education and research. This is probably true of some other places in the world, but is luckily not true of most of the world.

Do not think that having a PhD will guarantee you a job or a good salary. The job market for PhDs varies widely with the field of study. I have heard of freshly-minted doctors being hired at $40-$45k at a large Boston-area university, in the field of linguistics. That's not a good wage around here, when an electrician can easily make twice that, and a pharmacist three times as much.

The cultural value of a doctoral degree also varies. Around here in Boston, it has value for sure but it is considered crude and egotistical to ask to be addressed as "doctor". This, evidently, is not true in Germany, wherein PhDs attach doktor to their name as though it were some sort of hereditary title, and expect to be addressed as "herr professor doktor", and, from what I hear, think highly of themselves and their academic credentials. I understand that Russians, even russian emigrees, are at least, if not more, socially stratified by the degrees they've been awarded and the institution which has awarded them (Just try telling a PhD graduate from Moscow State University that their degree isn't as valuable as the same degree from a US university..it's a good way to pick a fight). In some circles, it is considered "marrying down" to wed someone with a lesser degree, and frowned upon! If this sort of environment sounds like culture you are in, it would
seem to be worth getting a PhD, even if you don't believe in the attitude of privilege that surrounds the community, because you can always treat the peasants (unlettered) an lesser nobility (Associates, Bachelors, Masters degrees) with dignity of your choosing.

Regardless of your desire for a degree, you should only attempt it if you think it is something you can achieve. It's a lot of hard work (in most places), a fair amount of ass-kissing and politics. If your study habits are not excellent, if you are easily distracted, or have other obligations (family), then perhaps it is better to forgo the PhD. But when you do decide not to enter a doctoral program, take not that entering it several years after obtaining your BS/BA may not be easy.

There are more important things in life than academic achievement, but if it suits you, go for it.

[Simon Quellen Field]

I think it's great that so many people are getting advanced degrees.

It is an impressive accomplishment to have a doctorate in the sciences, and

anyone who denigrates that accomplishment is just being foolish.

Of course it is expensive, time consuming, and difficult.  That is why everyone

doesn't have one, and why it is impressive, like getting a book published, or

starting a successful company, or winning an Olympic medal.

None of those accomplishments are guarantees of financial success, or indeed

guarantees of making more money than it cost to pursue those goals.  In many cases,

if you put the same time and effort into a career in some other white collar profession,

you will be making more money at the same age as the new PhD when she finally

enters the job market.

Few people get their doctorates as a way to get rich.  Perhaps that is because those

who are foolish enough to think that is the way to riches are smart enough to know

they have little chance of finishing a doctorate.

It is possible to do real science without credentials.  It is just harder.  Whether it is

so much harder that getting a doctorate is easier would seem to be the question at

hand, and I don't have the data to answer it.  But I have some data points, and some

opinions.

Part of science is getting your work published and getting your experiments reproduced.

Both of those are easier if you have credentials.  But if you have friends with doctorates

who are willing to be first author on your paper, you can clear that hurdle, at the expense

of a little ego.

Another part of science is having the funds to pursue it.  For most scientists, that means

working at a place that pays you to do science.  Getting a job at such a place is easier

with credentials than without.  An alternative is to start your own company that does the

science, and pay yourself.  This is far easier than getting a doctorate, and in many circles

it is as prestigious.

I don't do science.  I do engineering, I start successful companies, I write and publish books,

and I read a lot of papers and books written by people who actually do real science, and

discover new things.  Most of the people I know who have doctorates in the sciences are

also doing engineering, not science.  They may be chemists, physicists, or biologists, or

they may have advanced degrees in computer science, but what they do for a living is

engineering.  They are applying knowledge to create new products, not discovering new

things about the world.  Engineering is a noble profession, and it pays a lot better than

science -- enough to put kids through college, pay off the mortgage, travel, whatever.

Provide something of value, and you can get value in return.  But some accomplishments

are worth more than the dollars they can create.  Win that gold medal, write that book,

start that company, or get that doctorate.  It is about you and your goals, and what you want

to be, more than about what you can do with it once you have achieved it.

--

[J. S. John]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 6:46 PM, Simon Quellen Field <sfi...@scitoys.com> wrote:
> I think it's great that so many people are getting advanced degrees.
> It is an impressive accomplishment to have a doctorate in the sciences, and
> anyone who denigrates that accomplishment is just being foolish.
> Of course it is expensive, time consuming, and difficult.  That is why
> everyone
> doesn't have one, and why it is impressive, like getting a book published,

I haven't read through all of the above thoughts but you guys are
somehow discouraging. I want to go for a phd in pharmaceutics or
bioengineering. Honestly, fields like biology probably not the best
paid but I think if you work for the industry, you're better off. I'm
still weighing my options but I moved on from trying for Pharmacy
school [Pharm. D.] and would much rather do innovative research.

[Brent Neal]

I'm following this thread with great amusement. Just so folks have a
decent idea where I'm coming from, I have a Ph.D. and am employed as a
research scientist. I am also on my companies recruiting committee for
our central research division, and have been involved with the
evaluation of over 100 candidates.in the past 3 years.

So, given that, a few thoughts:
1) If you are paying to go to grad school in a natural science, you
should quit now, because you are very likely incompetent. If you
cannot get a teaching assistantship or ideally a research
assistantship to cover your tuition, then you ought not be in grad
school. Exceptions can be made for some schools that do not offer
assistantships to first year students. I know a few of those and some
of them are really good schools. Its a cost-benefit analysis there.

2) Yes, a Ph.D. is important. Its more than just an admittance to the
country club of academics. My company will absolutely not consider you
for any position in central research other than a hourly lab tech
position unless you have one. The degree is not just for academics.
This is also true for many of our competitors. A Ph.D. tells me that
you have more than just some narrow ability to dick around in the lab
and come up with something interesting. It tells me that you can
understand and explain WHY that interesting thing happened and what
its implications are. It also tells me that you can go back to the
fundamentals and learn the details of a related area when you need to.

3) If your graduate advisor is not encouraging you to think about how
to extend, expand, or improve your work, he/she is very likely
incompetent and you should consider changing advisors. Every year I
see tons of grad students crippled by graduate advisors who stamp
every bit of creativity and intellectual curiosity out of their
students. Fortunately, I've also seen a lot of advisors who mentor
their students well and give them opportunities to take some risk. We
like those students and tend to offer them jobs. :)

4) Any asshole can do "scientific stuff," just like any asshole can
nail two boards together. Nailing two boards together, however, does
not make you a carpenter, any more than the skills of growing protein
crystals or running a gel make you a scientist. To be a good scientist
requires some training, and grad school is one key place you get that.
As someone else pointed out, you can get there by yourself, but its
really damned hard. Having a good mentor is something I believe is
critical and grad school gives you a menu of potential mentors. Does
it have to be this way? Obviously not. There are plenty of examples of
folks learning to be good scientists outside of grad school. But not
many, and all the ones I can think of are pre-WWI.

5) Ideas are easy and common. Figuring out which ones are good and
which ones are stupid is hard and relatively uncommon. What I've
learned is that its impossible to tell them apart with out a lot of
hard work. 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, etc. Your success as
a scientist depends on your ability to screen and test ideas FAST. If
you can't, for any given crackpot idea that comes to your mind, design
a series of experiments a priori to validate your concept, its
probably a bad idea. This has been my experience with my own crackpot
ideas. The ones I knew how to validate right off have been good, the
ones that were too vague to validate were bad.

Anyway, I'm sure this has annoyed a lot of folks, which I'm somewhat
sorry about. For those of you who are down with it - we're hiring
Ph.D. chemists, chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, materials
scientists, and polymer physicists this year. We're looking for folks
with raw technical prowess, indefatigable creativity and strong
leadership skills. If you think you've got what it takes, send me your
resume off-list. I work for a mid-sized materials and specialty
chemical company that has its hands in a little bit of everything. You
get 15% of your time to work on anything you want to work on and the
company likes to find its future executives from amongst its Ph.D.
scientists and engineers. Our CEO and 2 of our 3 Division presidents
have Ph.Ds in chemistry or chemical engineering.

I apologize if I sound overly crotchety. :)

B

--
Brent Neal, Ph.D.
http://brentn.freeshell.org

[Daniel Wexler]

When I chose to enter a doctoral program in microbiology (in 1979), I
did so both to challenge myself intellectually and to enter a field in
which I thought I could make a contribution in the area of human
health. When I started, my stipend was a pittance, $3700 annually, but
I was too busy to care that I had few possessions, lived in a slummy
apartment with two strangers, and ate rice-a-roni every night for
dinner. Even though today I no longer practice my discipline in the
lab, I am satisfied to teach biology to high school students. I can
look back and say that my early research was more than successful, and
my failure to capitalize on that only showed that after I met the
challenge I realized my interests lay outside of bench research.
Although one can say with some validity that a degree is not necessary
for scientific discovery, it provides the credibility necessary to
pursue it. It also shows that one has proven skills relating to
discipline, persistence, written/verbal communication, and
problem-solving, all transferable skills. A Ph.D. program is a
formalized crash course in self-improvement.

[Mackenzie Cowell]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:46 PM, Brent Neal <bre...@gmail.com> wrote:

As someone else pointed out, you can get there by yourself, but its
really damned hard. Having a good mentor is something I believe is
critical and grad school gives you a menu of potential mentors.

Agreed.  How do we develop a distributed mentorship program for non-professional scientists & engineers that approaches the quality of mentorship PhDs recieve?  Is face-to-face collaboration critical?  If so, than at least we could facilitate local networking between expert volunteers and those looking for mentorship via our site.  If not, than we could be trying to do something much grander.

Simon, you sort of seem like a PhD-level mentor to me... you should take on a worthy student from our ranks and start the virtual PhD experiment.

Mac

 

[J. S. John]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:46 PM, Brent Neal <bre...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm following this thread with great amusement. Just so folks have a
decent idea where I'm coming from, I have a Ph.D. and am employed as a
research scientist. I am also on my companies recruiting committee for
our central research division, and have been involved with the
evaluation of over 100 candidates.in the past 3 years.

So, given that, a few thoughts:
1) If you are paying to go to grad school in a natural science, you
should quit now, because you are very likely incompetent. If you
cannot get a teaching assistantship or ideally a research
assistantship to cover your tuition, then you ought not be in grad
school. Exceptions can be made for some schools that do not offer
assistantships to first year students. I know a few of those and some
of them are really good schools. Its a cost-benefit analysis there.

I like what you wrote. Just the facts from someone who knows. My question is what you mean by natural science? Is it like biology, chemistry, and its branches [like the ones listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_science ?]

I'm working on my B.S. in biochemistry but would like to study something in the pharmaceutical field except medicinal chemistry. That or something like biomedical engineering or some bio-related engineering field. I'm still scouting my options but anyone know how the fields I listed are like in terms of jobs.

[Bryan Bishop]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:19 PM, Mackenzie Cowell wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:46 PM, Brent Neal wrote:
>> As someone else pointed out, you can get there by yourself, but its
>> really damned hard. Having a good mentor is something I believe is
>> critical and grad school gives you a menu of potential mentors.
>
> Agreed.  How do we develop a distributed mentorship program for
> non-professional scientists & engineers that approaches the quality of
> mentorship PhDs recieve?  Is face-to-face collaboration critical?  If so,
> than at least we could facilitate local networking between expert volunteers
> and those looking for mentorship via our site.  If not, than we could be
> trying to do something much grander.

I can personally vouch for the personal mentoring idea- especially
over the internet. Even with my advisors in person that I work with
daily, the most insightful and most encouraging thoughts are always
expressed in writing, even if they seem too zen/stoic half the time.
On top of this, the internet allows you to find all sorts of very
peculiar- and ridiculously brilliant- mentors. Don't pass this up.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

[Kyle Stratis]

Not at all, in fact this was the sort of advice that I think would be indispensable to anyone (such as myself) trying to decide on their path after graduating. I'm still trying to weigh my decisions, but a knowledge that there is some sort of job market outside of academia is quite comforting, and the totality of the advice and information has given me yet another nudge toward grad school

Kyle Stratis

[Sukhbir Rattan]

Great Discussion...........

The significance of Ph.D in western countries may be different but in eastern or probably, country like India, where I live means alot....

You can see, big craze among the master students to do the Ph.D from European or American Universities and the reason is very obvious, they want to come back to their respective countries and want to be associate professor in xyz university.........If you really want to ask them,why they are doing Ph.D, they have one answer, to have sureity to have job.......Nothing else....

Regards,
Sukhbir Singh Rattan.....

[Brent Neal]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 22:20, J. S. John <phill...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:46 PM, Brent Neal <bre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'm following this thread with great amusement. Just so folks have a
>> decent idea where I'm coming from, I have a Ph.D. and am employed as a
>> research scientist. I am also on my companies recruiting committee for
>> our central research division, and have been involved with the
>> evaluation of over 100 candidates.in the past 3 years.
>>
>> So, given that, a few thoughts:
>> 1) If you are paying to go to grad school in a natural science, you
>> should quit now, because you are very likely incompetent. If you
>> cannot get a teaching assistantship or ideally a research
>> assistantship to cover your tuition, then you ought not be in grad
>> school. Exceptions can be made for some schools that do not offer
>> assistantships to first year students. I know a few of those and some
>> of them are really good schools. Its a cost-benefit analysis there.
>
> I like what you wrote. Just the facts from someone who knows. My question is
> what you mean by natural science? Is it like biology, chemistry, and its
> branches [like the ones listed here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_science ?]

I meant physics, chemistry, biology, applied math/statistics, computer
science, and all of the engineering fields. I suppose geology would
count, but I have no data on how geology grad students are funded. :)

>
> I'm working on my B.S. in biochemistry but would like to study something in
> the pharmaceutical field except medicinal chemistry. That or something like
> biomedical engineering or some bio-related engineering field. I'm still
> scouting my options but anyone know how the fields I listed are like in
> terms of jobs.

Most pharmaceutical chemists I know are either biochemists or
synthetic organic chemists. This is a tres crappy field right now,
because Merck, Glaxo, and others have laid off a ton of scientists in
the past year and the market just can't absorb them. If you like
medical devices and whatnot, biomed engineering is a great field. One
thing I have noticed is that almost all the top materials science
students that I've seen resumes for in the past 2 years have had a
strong biology focus. Never before, I think, have more people studied
hydrogels with as little impact as in materials science programs
today. :) Anyway, if you like biological systems, you are not limited
to fields that start with "bio-" to study them these days.

[Mark Cidade]

The world of software is hungry for biologists!

[lianchao han]

this thread may be triggered by the Nature editorial article bearing the same title. i think the article is a bit misleading. the answer to the question really depends on your definition of "scientists" and your goal in life. for me, a scientist is anyone that uses scientific methods to acquire knowledge, either as a career or as a hobby. if your goal is be hired by universities, research institutes and companies in America and EU, you do need a phd. if you want to be an entrepreneur or hobbyist, you don't necessarily need one. nowadays you can learn any subject via internet.however, life science is still an art. you need a master to show you the way, particular in labs. i've personally benefited from going to schools. it disciplined me to learn.

the Nature editorial refers to chinese college graduates forgo PhD and go to work for a genomic company. it believes this is a model or a trend. but the fact is that it is much cheaper to hire a BS than a PhD in china. in the past 20 year, the chinese government set a policy to promote life science. many bright young people went into the field but were surprised to find there was no job after their graduation, because no industry base existed then. there are lots of surplus graduates accumulated through the years. finding a job is still tough for college graduates today.  so BGI is not a trend.

lianchao

[Michael Vieths]

On 3/5/2010 11:03 AM, Mark Cidade wrote:
> The world of software is hungry for biologists!
>

Where (which job markets/companies)?

I've been a software developer for about 10 years (with no CS degree)
and finished a biology degree 4 years ago. Thus far it's been more of a
liability. I had an interview at Boston Scientific that was going
great, then the interviewer hit the Eduction part of my resume and his
tone immediately changed from enthusiasm to disappointment. I've been
out of work (aside from a 4 month contract at Cray) since Fall of 2008.
I'd love to find someplace that wants both my skillsets.

--
Michael Vieths
Foe...@Visi.com

[Tito Jankowski]

I was reading up on Statistics as part of my new job. Ever heard of the word "regression"? Here's its origin -- a great example of DIY + math + naturalism!

The first thing you ought to know about linear regression is how the strange term regression came to be applied to the subject of linear statistical models. This type of predictive model was first studied in depth by a 19th-Century scientist, Sir Francis Galton. Galton was a self-taught naturalist, anthropologist, astronomer, and statistician--and a real-life Indiana Jones character. He was famous for his explorations, and he wrote a best-selling book on how to survive in the wilderness entitled "Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Places." (The book is still in print and still considered a useful resource--you can find a copy in Perkins Library. Among other handy hints for staying alive--such as how to treat spear-wounds or extract your horse from quicksand--it introduced the concept of the sleeping bag to the Western World.)

Galton was a pioneer in the application of statistical methods to human measurements, and in studying data on relative heights of fathers and their sons, he observed the following phenomenon: a taller-than-average father tends to produce a taller-than-average son, but the son is likely to be less tall than the father in terms of his relative position within his own population. Thus, for example, if the father's height is x standard deviations from the mean within his own population, then you should predict that the son's height will be rx (r times x) standard deviations from the mean within his own population, where r is a number less than 1 in magnitude. (r is what will be defined below as the correlation between the height of the father and the height of the son.) The same is true of virtually any physical measurement than can be performed on parents and their offspring. This seems at first glance like evidence of some genetic or sociocultural mechanism for damping out extreme physical traits, and Galton therefore termed it a "regression toward mediocrity," which in modern terms is a "regression to the mean." But the phenomenon discovered by Galton is a mathematical inevitability: unless every son is exactly as tall as his father in a relative sense (i.e., unless the correlation is exactly equal to 1), the predictions must regress to the mean regardless of the underlying mechanisms of inheritance or culture.

[Ali Hashemi]

I'll share my experiences.

I have a MASc, and while I'd still like to eventually get a PhD (it
_does_ provide you with quite a support infrastructure and quite bit
of leeway (depending on your adviser) to do research _your_ way...
you'll be really hard pressed to find this in industry - if you're
lucky, you might get the 15-20% time...), I decided not to in the
short term.

Basically, my reasons for not pursuing a PhD immeidately are
(a) it takes too long (given what's important in my life right now) -
i.e. i want to do other stuff in the meantime
(b) i'm tired of being dirt poor (i did get a reasonable stipend, but
it's nothing living in a big city)
(c) I'm waiting for some technology to mature...

However, since then, I've had many doors closed to me simply because I
don't have that degree - even though a lot of people might recognize
talent, there are often many bureaucratic hurdles / protocols which
simply take you out of the running for many positions. I had a
position in Italy which was downgraded to from 2 years to 3 months b/c
of no degree (bureaucracy).

In terms of do you _need_ a PhD to be a good scientist? I'd say, short
answer is no. However, you have to be a very special type of person to
get to the point.

A PhD ensures that you are up with the canonical literature in the
field. It gives you access to journals, labs, peers and an environment
in which you can hone your "scientific skills". It provides an
infrastructure in which you can determine which questions are original
and which are simply uninformed. This is especially true for
established fields like mathematics, physics etc. In the newer fields,
where the canon is shorter, it might be easier for an amateur to walk
right in. But more often than not, the ignorance leads one down many
rabbit holes, simply by virtue of not knowing what's been done before.

On its own however, like any other program a PhD is only as good as
the institution (and even department) which hands them out. There is
tremendous variance of quality in these degrees across and even within
universities.

On being a good scientist -- know what's been done in the field. It
might not take 5 years to get there, but I assure you there aren't any
shortcuts. You gotta put in the time / effort one way or other. Beyond
that, develop good practices and somehow get access to cutting edge
research and relatively adequate resources. The real killer in terms
of $ to get to a PhD is the undergrad hurdle. Imo, undergrad is simply
a $ grabbing vehicle for universities, once you get to grad school,
things are sooo much better :D.

In summation,
1) the way our society is structured, many doors are closed unless you
have those 3 letters
2) those three letters generally provide a guarantee that you are at
least familiar, if not expert in the canonical literature of the field
3) a phd gives you access to labs, journals and resources that you
will be hard pressed to attain on your own
4) unless you're an exceptionally motivated self learner, you might
languish for a long time
5) if the field is relatively new, and has lower barriers of entry ($
$ / resources), then you might be able to make up for 2-4.

Cheers,
Ali

PS - I'd say math, heck pretty much all of the sciences before
1930-40's had really small canons and low barriers of entry. Almost
all the low hanging fruit have been picked by now... There's a reason
why there are almost no polymaths these days, there is waaaaaaay to
much for anyone person to be able to keep up with. What is the stat -
each year more scientific information is published than existed in all
of humanity before?

[Phil]

It depends on the field, and the year. I have a PhD in computer
science from the U. of Buffalo. As I was nearing graduation, I
started asking what kind of jobs all the other grads from UB with PhDs
were getting.

They weren't getting jobs as scientists. I knew students with a dozen
publications as first author, one of whom had chaired 3 conferences,
who sent out hundreds of resumes and got only a few responses. Out of
about a dozen new PhDs, and thousands of resumes sent out, only 2
landed academic jobs, at the U. of North Dakota, and the U. of
Missouri.

I asked my then-girlfriend, who grew up in a family of academics and
was very savvy about these things, why this was.

"Oh," she said, "a UB diploma is worthless for research. You can't
get a job in academia if you come from here. I thought you knew
that."

I knew that she wanted a job in academia, so I asked her why she was
going here.

"It doesn't apply to me," she said. "I'm a woman. I can get a job
anywhere. Equal opportunity."

So I looked at the biographies of computer science faculty at good
universities, and started a tally of where they had done their
undergraduate and graduate work. I looked at about 40 faculty, and
90% of them came from MIT, Stanford, Carnegie-Mellon, Harvard, Oxford,
or a few other select ivy-league schools.

My first job after graduation was with an AI/entertainment company
started up by some people from Carnegie-Mellon. They moved to Boston
specifically to hire grads from MIT. In the office, they made no
secret of the fact that they regarded people from Carnegie-Mellon and
MIT as the smart people who should be doing the science, which is part
of why the company imploded.

Later, when I worked at the NIH, I noticed the same pattern as with CS
faculty: Heads of departments and laboratories were usually graduates
of Harvard or a few other elite schools.

So, if you can get a PhD from Harvard or MIT, yes, it's absolutely
worth it. It will open doors for you all around the world. Venture
capitalists will come to your school and try to give you huge sums of
money. A PhD from an ivy-league school means what a PhD from anywhere
meant 40 years ago.

A PhD from some other school is of questionable value. It depends on
the field and the year. Biology is the easiest discipline to succeed
in if you're not from a famous school, because there is funding
available for about a hundred times as many scientists as in other
disciplines. This means that having a non-ivy PhD in biology can be
valuable, because it's still possible to follow the traditional career
route and do science. Computer science is one of the worst, because
there's almost no government or corporate funding of research, so the
number of non-academic jobs in which you can do computer science
research is very small; probably fewer than 1000 in the entire world.
A PhD in CS is correspondingly less-valuable, since it's not going to
allow you to do research anyway unless you have the right pedigree.