
A ‘Rebel’ Without a Ph.D (2014) - digital55
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140326-a-rebel-without-a-ph-d/
======
jimrandomh
"Oh, yes. I’m very proud of not having a Ph.D. I think the Ph.D. system is an
abomination. It was invented as a system for educating German professors in
the 19th century, and it works well under those conditions. It’s good for a
very small number of people who are going to spend their lives being
professors. But it has become now a kind of union card that you have to have
in order to have a job, whether it’s being a professor or other things, and
it’s quite inappropriate for that. It forces people to waste years and years
of their lives sort of pretending to do research for which they’re not at all
well-suited. In the end, they have this piece of paper which says they’re
qualified, but it really doesn’t mean anything. The Ph.D. takes far too long
and discourages women from becoming scientists, which I consider a great
tragedy. So I have opposed it all my life without any success at all."

I completely agree. And I would add that it's a filter that selects status-
seekers over truth-seekers, who have no reason to tolerate it.

~~~
thebooktocome
Pray, tell us how a "truth-seeker" does highly technical research in any field
without the resources and credentials of a university.

~~~
jimrandomh
For fields that require expensive lab equipment, like physics and biology, I
admit this is hard. But for fields like math and computer science, all you
need is a computer and free time. A university can help you get time for
research, by paying a salary so you don't have to do a non-research job, but
there are other ways to handle that. A university can help you make
connections and find collaborators, but it's not the only way to do that,
either.

~~~
thebooktocome
> But for fields like math and computer science, all you need is a computer
> and free time.

As someone who has been on both sides, it can be hard to impossible to
research mathematics without access to a university library and credentials.
Math books are prohibitively expensive and go out of print swiftly. Articles
are behind paywalls. Few research mathematicians in my experience respond to
requests for preprints or clarification from non-academic e-mails.

------
cup
The problem with his argument is that a certain set of circumstances (i.e. a
world war) allowed him to enter his position without the PhD.

I'm fairly confident in saying the challenge to become a professor at a
respectable university in a stem field without a PhD makes it for all intents
and purposes impossible.

So while the PhD system is deeply flawed, unless he can provide an alternative
then theres not much to discuss.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>So while the PhD system is deeply flawed, unless he can provide an
alternative then there's not much to discuss.

Ok, how about a much simpler system of research apprenticeship? An apprentice
is paid a low but livable salary, possibly with tuition remission for any
necessary coursework, and probably with TA/RA duties as we have now. There are
no grades and no qualifying exams. Instead, the apprentice must simply produce
three publishable (ie: either published, or judged by their committee to be
publishable) research papers within the committee's set time limit. Once they
have accomplished this, the apprentice is promoted to be a professional
researcher, given a proper professional salary and allowed to submit work as
they please without an advisor's co-authorship.

This actually captures most of what we believe, deep-down, that PhD's are
_actually for_ , but without the bureaucracy and indignity of treating
apprentice researchers as "students" who need their school's approval more
than they need to do good work.

~~~
chrisseaton
That's exactly what a PhD already is - a research apprenticeship. They already
get a low but liveable salary without having to pay tuition. I don't think
many PhDs do TA/RA duties - they're too busy researching.

PhD students don't have grades or qualifying exams, and three publishable
research papers is what most PhD students achieve anyway. The thesis is just
these papers written up into one continuous piece and submitted to the people
who will become their peers.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Where are you coming from? I've seen two systems for running postgrad degrees,
and neither work as you describe.

>They already get a low but liveable salary without having to pay tuition. I
don't think many PhDs do TA/RA duties - they're too busy researching.

In most places I've seen, PhD students are the _primary_ source of TA/RA
labor. If we're _lucky_ , we get a base stipend and TA/RA adds to it.

>PhD students don't have grades or qualifying exams

I've never seen a PhD program with no coursework, no qualifying exams, and no
grade requirements for either. Could you show me where such an arcadian
academic track exists?

>and three publishable research papers is what most PhD students achieve
anyway

That was my point, yes.

~~~
chrisseaton
In the UK I think all PhD programmes work as I've described.

To begin my PhD I made contact from cold with a professor who had similar
research interests to mine at the University I wanted to go to. We did an
informal interview and he offered me the studentship. I didn't go through any
kind of central application process, do any entrance exams or write any essays
or anything.

When I started my PhD I immediately began working on my own research and
writing my own papers. I never did any coursework or exams. My only assessment
is a yearly review presentation and then the thesis and viva at the end. I'm
not involved in any kind of group project so I'm not working for anyone else
as 'cheap labour'.

I get paid by a grant from the government of around $21k a year. That's tax-
free so I guess it's maybe the equivalent of $25k. I have done about 50 paid
hours of TAing (demonstrating) during three years, but it was optional and I
did it just to meet some new masters students really.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Wow... that's _awesome_. That's quite different from how I've seen it done in
other places. I _wish_ I could get that much freedom from a studentship!

~~~
physPop
They're also only 3 years long typically. We don't hire a lot of post-docs
from the UK because they are relatively less well trained due to the
significantly shorter time spend in lab...

------
baddspellar
As long as "Percent faculty with terminal degree in their field" is an
evaluation criterion for ranking school quality (I took those exact words from
the US News and World Report rankings criteria), there is little chance that
non-PhD holders will be able to become tenured faculty at research
universities going forward. Let's not fool ourselves. Schools work towards
higher rankings, as they are rewarded for doing so.

~~~
goodcanadian
Sure, but when only 4% of PhDs ever get a faculty position, there is a huge
pool of underemployed PhDs to choose from. Why would an institution ever
consider someone without regardless of rankings?

------
arca_vorago
What I think this boils down to is our cultures unhealthy focus on authority.
One of my favorite classes I took at uni was advanced English rhetoric, and
the teacher explained that overall most people tend to have a handful of
mechanisms with which they establish their credibility with the reader, in
particular with establishment of authority. "I have my Ph.D in X, therefore I
am knowledge about subject X."

The problem is that I see this taken to the extreme in all kinds of arguments,
to the point that I would almost rather not know anything about the author or
his/her authority because it colors my judgement of the material itself. Give
me your facts and data and opinions and let me evaluate them for myself
without having to rest on your laurels.

This also applies to government and diplomatic, and high level business
actions. Currently the modus operandi seems to be that people in power say,
"I've been in this industry for Y years, and have worked with P, I'm the
expert and you should listen to me. Oh and all this has to be done in secret,
because the public wouldn't understand it anyway."

I call bullshit on that constantly. Honestly, just try it, the next time you
read a published scientific paper or any material of any weight or note, keep
an eye on how much time and space is wasted on people establishing their
"authority".

~~~
noobiemcfoob
The problem though is that if you eliminate the markers of credentials any
field of information gets flooded with many people who don't have the
requisite knowledge to be talking about said field in the first place. While
you could make the argument that any investigation into this bogus research
would reveal that the person is unreliable, in reality, doing such an
investigation is incredibly time consuming. It's much more efficient to take a
Ph.D or any other specific credential as a filter and make the general
assumption that someone with that credential is more likely to be correct and
have valid research.

Yeah, that assumption can and has been way wrong in the past, but I would
argue that the valid/invalid ratio compared against the time needed to fully
investigate every bit of research any person puts out is much preferred.

------
peter303
In some cases a PhD is formality. In many PhD programs you have to publish the
equivalent of three peer-reviewed paper in your specialty. Getting these
papers published knows you are doing something important and original and know
the system. Sometimes these papers are just stapled together into a the thesis
with a forward. Rebel types may forgo the title even though the meet all the
qualifications.

------
peter303
Always been a couple of prominent MIT faculty without PhDs, like the founder
of the MIT computer lab and the current head of the Media Lab.

------
shas3
Freeman Dyson was still publishing top quality articles at 88.
[http://www.pnas.org/content/109/26/10409.full.pdf+html](http://www.pnas.org/content/109/26/10409.full.pdf+html)

