i never said once that 'science PhD's are worth less than humanities'. i have never once, ever, on this forum made a remark about any one academic subject being more 'worthy' than another. i think you are having difficulty reading rather simple prose. i said "a PhD a career in academia doth not make", which is completely true and uncontroversial. it was in response to you saying "i was offered 2 PhD placements", when we teased you about 'not being up to a career in academia'. the only meaning of my response is that PhD's are plentiful, and successful academics are not. i don't have exact stats but i know that generally about 5x as many people are viva'd as are employed in post-doc. so my (neutral) statement doesn't say anything about science vs. humanities. i don't go there. you do. i think it's an utterly stupid topic to go into.
and actually, just as many people bother studying humanities PhD's, just most of them do it 'for the love', as you so praised previously in d&st. but yes, you are correct, there are relatively few private industry applications for a PhD in philosophy or literature. i'm not sure how you can turn that into a devaluation of its intrinsic 'worth' though. the fact science has industry and invention (i.e. practical application) doesn't make the academic-intellectual endeavor a priori more 'valid'. it's just the way the job market works in a post-industrial economy. tying relations of inherent 'value' and 'merit' to job-market valuations is very silly. that would surely imply that economics and finance degrees are better than all others, even science PhD's, because of the high employment rate salary culture in banking. uuuuuh.
and actually, just as many people bother studying humanities PhD's, just most of them do it 'for the love', as you so praised previously in d&st. but yes, you are correct, there are relatively few private industry applications for a PhD in philosophy or literature. i'm not sure how you can turn that into a devaluation of its intrinsic 'worth' though. the fact science has industry and invention (i.e. practical application) doesn't make the academic-intellectual endeavor a priori more 'valid'. it's just the way the job market works in a post-industrial economy. tying relations of inherent 'value' and 'merit' to job-market valuations is very silly. that would surely imply that economics and finance degrees are better than all others, even science PhD's, because of the high employment rate salary culture in banking. uuuuuh.
Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-04-21 03:41:02)
