This thread could use more Carl Sagan quotes
really dilbert could have saved 2 pages of his hot guff by just reading a wikipedia entry on the PhD qualification. but, because it was me responding to him, i just had to be wrong... somehow... even though it's my own specific interest and career path. now that's what you call dumb.
Any reason I should join the rest of the lefties and hate Monsanto?
Over genetically modified crops? Not really, no.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
Didn't think so.
omg gmo's are killing people.
its more of the ethical issues of companies like that patenting the hell out of DNA sequences (aka life) in my opinion. that plus suing the hell out of small farmers and other nasty tricks with seeds (terminator seeds)
I read it and it proves my point. You're misunderstanding the point of a PhD.Uzique The Lesser wrote:
really dilbert could have saved 2 pages of his hot guff by just reading a wikipedia entry on the PhD qualification. but, because it was me responding to him, i just had to be wrong... somehow... even though it's my own specific interest and career path. now that's what you call dumb.
I say not. That may be how it is being used but thats not the point at all.the PhD is the piece of paper/qualification that 'proves' you are capable of 'professional' academic work. thus it is analogous to a 'professional license'
Last edited by Dilbert_X (2013-03-27 02:21:38)
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This.Winston_Churchill wrote:
its more of the ethical issues of companies like that patenting the hell out of DNA sequences (aka life) in my opinion. that plus suing the hell out of small farmers and other nasty tricks with seeds (terminator seeds)
Also their usage of Glyphosate herbicides.
Have a read on Wikipedia about all the controversies.
Genetically modifying plants isn't really the issue.
Everyone does it. It's just a faster, more direct form of breeding/cultivation.
(Of course, you will get all the major fuck-ups much faster as well.)
BTW, there are many more companies doing the same, but Monsanto is the biggest, and in many parts of the world (especially Africa) the monopolist, spreading their products with nasty tactics.
you genuinely have no idea how the phd system works.Dilbert_X wrote:
I read it and it proves my point. You're misunderstanding the point of a PhD.Uzique The Lesser wrote:
really dilbert could have saved 2 pages of his hot guff by just reading a wikipedia entry on the PhD qualification. but, because it was me responding to him, i just had to be wrong... somehow... even though it's my own specific interest and career path. now that's what you call dumb.I say not. That may be how it is being used but thats not the point at all.the PhD is the piece of paper/qualification that 'proves' you are capable of 'professional' academic work. thus it is analogous to a 'professional license'
at all.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
taken in-itself, as an isolated thing, a PhD is a person's first tentative steps into serious, individual academic research. the PhD is technically the first piece of work a person ever does that is going to be checked, cross-checked, and edited to a high-enough standard to make a peer-reviewed journal (see, that criterion already makes it a quasi-professional endeavour). but yes, taken on its own, a PhD is just a person's first contribution to research in a field. okay. but it is not the 'apex', like you say. the PhD is most definitely not the 'gold-standard' of research; that's laughable. very few academics - only the stars and people who go down in history for their intellectual contributions, really - end up publishing super-noteworthy or world-changing PhD's. the PhD is mostly the first-step of the amateur/student into a professional piece of work, marked to all the professional standards of the discipline. it's the first piece of work that introduces a level of networking and wider awareness of the academic job-market and publishing game.Dilbert_X wrote:
I read it and it proves my point. You're misunderstanding the point of a PhD.Uzique The Lesser wrote:
really dilbert could have saved 2 pages of his hot guff by just reading a wikipedia entry on the PhD qualification. but, because it was me responding to him, i just had to be wrong... somehow... even though it's my own specific interest and career path. now that's what you call dumb.I say not. That may be how it is being used but thats not the point at all.the PhD is the piece of paper/qualification that 'proves' you are capable of 'professional' academic work. thus it is analogous to a 'professional license'
furthermore, when you consider a PhD in anything other than lofty-ideal 'what is it' terms, a PhD equals up to about one hundred thousand dollars' and up to 7 years' of life investment. so it becomes a little blinkered to just maintain that a PhD is "a piece of research just for the sake of a piece of research, and something to be damn proud of for its own sake". nobody is denying a PhD is a fine and laudable thing to want to do. i imagine, dilbert, that 90% of people who take a PhD mostly want to spend 4 years of their life writing on one topic because... well, because they do have a genuine interest in it. a 4 year long chase and -$100k debt is a long-distance carrot, indeed, for people who are 'just in it for the academic gravytrain' (whatever that means; it surely has no connection to the realities of the academic job-market, which are even more sharkish and ultra-competitive than professional law).
so mostly it's you who are wrong. you talk about the PhD like it's the crowning achievement, whereas really, the pragmatic reality of their implementation/use is that they are the 'starting stepping stone' for career academics. not many amateur dilettantes have the time or money to take a PhD for its high-falutin' aim of "just contributing to the sphere of human knowledge". it comes with a professional price-tag, and it consumes the majority of a person's decade. to argue incessantly against two people who perhaps have the most interest in academia on this board gives across the impression that you're a sad whippet backed into a corner. give it a rest.
Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-03-27 04:50:25)
You guys don't have your honours theses done to a publishable standard?
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
I didn't say it was the pinnacle of achievement in research, the problem is both of you see yourselves as career academics and can't see outside your bubble.
Exactly, not necessarily because they want to spend the rest of their life in academia and need to chase a 'licence'.i imagine, dilbert, that 90% of people who take a PhD mostly want to spend 4 years of their life writing on one topic because... well, because they do have a genuine interest in it.
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of course we do, in theory. in practice not many undergrads are getting their 8,000 word pieces of work published in journals. there are a lot of undergrads. there are not many journals. the journals actually charge about $400 for the pleasure of even publishing in them thesedays, because it's seen as such a 'career boost' and resume gift. lol. the normal publishing model has been completely reversed. i have been pressured to publish some of my work since my finalist year. i'm actually taking 2 months right now to redraft and type up some bachelor's and master's level work to get published. but i am only doing this with the obvious expectation i'm going to do a PhD. it's too expensive otherwise. sheer vanity project.Spark wrote:
You guys don't have your honours theses done to a publishable standard?
no dilbert, you missed my point. 90% of those people who intend to go into academia 'as a consequence' of their PhD have a massive interest in their PhD. you make out like it's impossible to do a PhD out of a prime motivated interest AND be a career academic. like they're mutually exclusive things. of course they're not. this is just your ridiculous and untenable construction: because you hate career academics, but can't resolve it with the fact you actually think a PhD is quite laudable. but there isn't this division: 'people who are doing a PhD like depressed robots because they just want a career in academia' vs. 'people who love doing the PhD because it's their only expectation'. that division does. not. exist. everyone who does a PhD (or 90%, as i cautiously hedged) do it because they love their topic. the ambition to remain in academia (an ambition that a tiny minority of completed PhD's actually get to fulfill, btw, as the academic job-market is intense) is just a natural compliment and corroborative of that basic passion.Dilbert_X wrote:
I didn't say it was the pinnacle of achievement in research, the problem is both of you see yourselves as career academics and can't see outside your bubble.Exactly, not necessarily because they want to spend the rest of their life in academia and need to chase a 'licence'.i imagine, dilbert, that 90% of people who take a PhD mostly want to spend 4 years of their life writing on one topic because... well, because they do have a genuine interest in it.
you talk about us "being within a bubble", but really you are spouting nonsense. dividing PhD candidates into two camps, where one camp merely enjoy the PHD, and the other must hate it, because all they want is a career in academia. i mean really. what fucking nonsense. you are deluded.
Ah, got you. One of the reasons I open access is such a good in the sciences, tbh (so, projects like arXiv etc) - try to make that barrier a little less important.of course we do, in theory. in practice not many undergrads are getting their 8,000 word pieces of work published in journals. there are a lot of undergrads. there are not many journals. the journals actually charge about $400 for the pleasure of even publishing in them thesedays, because it's seen as such a 'career boost' and resume gift. lol. the normal publishing model has been completely reversed. i have been pressured to publish some of my work since my finalist year. i'm actually taking 2 months right now to redraft and type up some bachelor's and master's level work to get published. but i am only doing this with the obvious expectation i'm going to do a PhD. it's too expensive otherwise. sheer vanity project.
---
I don't understand the mindset that says that you want a PhD just because it looks impressive on your resume. You better be into research if you want to do one, because that's what you'll be doing for all of the next few years of your life.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
Where did I say people must hate their PhD if their objective is a career in academia? I think you're projecting now.
Ahahahahaha my god.the journals actually charge about $400 for the pleasure of even publishing in them thesedays
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getting a PhD without an active interest in research is a disastrous life move. a decade of your life given over to learning the skills and practices of professional research... to then seek a job working in business/corporates? a PhD doesn't make you more employable outside of a research-setting than a master's degree - in fact, in most places, it makes you less. nobody wants a Dr. making telesales calls.
yeah, because academia is such a gravytrain, remember? so many jobs. so many slackers. so easy.Dilbert_X wrote:
Where did I say people must hate their PhD if their objective is a career in academia? I think you're projecting now.Ahahahahaha my god.the journals actually charge about $400 for the pleasure of even publishing in them thesedays
and that's exactly the rhetorical line you are trying to ply. "you two can't talk about a PhD with any objectivity because you have an interest in academia, thus you are biased and view it functionally". well, no. i'd like to know where all these people are who are taking a PhD "just for the love", and how they're financing it and justifying the time. i'm not seeing many of them around. me thinks they'd tend to be the sort of lackadaisical aristocratic scion that you'd hate, as well. funny that.
Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-03-27 05:25:21)
i've heard of some journals charging far more than $400. naturecom charges upwards of two-three thousand - but that's the cost of decent peer review.
Last edited by Spark (2013-03-27 05:28:12)
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
But everyone is doing it for the 'love of the subject' right?
You have to buy your way into a peer reviewed journal now? Ahahahahahahahaha.
You have to buy your way into a peer reviewed journal now? Ahahahahahahahaha.
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no, you have to submit work at a very high standard. but because of the changing model of journal payment, and the costs associated with it, you have to pay for the labour/costs of having your work published and distributed. this is for a myriad of reasons/factors, not least of all the fact that british universities now have a drastically reduced budget to pay for it on the department budget. which is politics, not academia 'degrading' in quality. you clearly know what you are talking about though, just like with the PhD. please tell me more.Dilbert_X wrote:
But everyone is doing it for the 'love of the subject' right?
You have to buy your way into a peer reviewed journal now? Ahahahahahahahaha.
also how thick are you? of course people do academia for the 'love of the subject'. why the fuck would anyone be inclined to go through one of the longest qualifications out of any profession, to enter a job-market that has less new jobs and career openings than the closed-shop of law? WHY would anyone do that if they didn't love the subject? you have some seriously misaligned information about academia. it's not a gravytrain. nobody puts themselves through the grind unless they are passionate about it. could you imagine working every day on the same subject, for 4 years, and not enjoying it? and all the while getting into debt? yeah, loads of people do a PhD because they hate it.
Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-03-27 06:15:03)
Tell us again about senior academics earning 100K+ a year.
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you're better off being a plumber in sydney.Dilbert_X wrote:
Tell us again about senior academics earning 100K+ a year.