
Put the “Ph” Back in PhD - Amorymeltzer
http://magazine.jhsph.edu/2015/summer/forum/rethinking-put-the-ph-back-in-phd
======
jmmcd
> We need big thinkers

We need some, but there aren't anywhere near enough big-thinking jobs for all
these PhDs.

> The success of science and technology will always lead to new ethical
> dilemmas. How do you spot them and try to work with society before they
> become problems? A better appreciation of ethics is likely to address what
> has become an epidemic of retractions in the scientific literature.

All the recent retractions have nothing to do with scientists being unaware of
ethical dilemmas raised by their work. They're to do with perverse incentives,
p-hacking, and occasionally deliberate dishonesty.

~~~
rquantz
_> We need big thinkers We need some, but there aren't anywhere near enough
big-thinking jobs for all these PhDs._

Yeah, man, jobs! It's all about jobs! Jobs jobs jobs! Steve Jobs! Jobs jobs!

How about this? The world needs big thinkers in ways other than their capacity
as economic actors. Einstein worked at a patent office. The work he did there
(for the patent office) was not his primary contribution to the world at that
time.

~~~
cryoshon
Yeah, I think the author forgot that:

1\. Being smart isn't a product, and most people won't consider it a skill

2\. Thinking big isn't a product, and most people won't consider it a skill

3\. Thinking big is usually reserved for top level people, of which there are
less than five

You know what they call the big thinker who is looking for a job with his
shiny new PhD? Unemployed.

~~~
nmrm2
_> You know what they call the big thinker who is looking for a job with his
shiny new PhD?_

In technical fields (which is what this article is about)?

The ones who choose to stay in academia and are lucky enought to find a
position are called "Professor".

The unlucky or disillusioned ones -- as well as the (majority) of PhDs who
never even intended to go into academia at any point during thier studies --
are called, variously, "Engineer", "Analyst", "Consultant", etc. and typically
start in the low six figures (and not even in the bay area / NYC). They take a
marginal hit to their lifetime earnings, but in most cases make decent
salaries and get to work on more interesting problems (obv. interesting is
subjective).

 _> Unemployed._

The unemployment rate for STEM PhDs is ludicrously low (FYI: if you google
this, be aware that the Slate article by Jordan Weissmann is IMO purposefully
misleading. See Table 1 of
[http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf14310/](http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf14310/)
and compare to his graphs. E.g., his graph seems to indicate that the
unemployment rate for CS PhDs was over around 15% in 2001, but the NSF tables
makes it clear that the rate was _0.9%_ , which is even more than what most
economists refer to as full employment. In fact, in CS, the increase for 0.9%
to 2% is almost entirely attributable to there being a lot more retired CS
phds now than 10 years ago (for rather obvious reasons). So the stats he's
using to tell his story are, at very best, unintentionally but absurdly non-
representative of the actual state of affairs. It's like asking someone the
day after they quit their job if they've started their new job yet and, when
they say "hell no, taking some time off to recharge", assuming they're
unemployable and/or don't have something lined up.)

------
d_theorist
I think this article mixes together and perhaps confuses a few different
things.

Stated problems:

\- scientists are not equipped by their training to be able to tackle "big"
challenges such as meteorites and pandemics.

\- "hyper-competitiveness" for grants

\- extreme specialisation means that people can't communicate.

And the solution is to learn about:

1\. epistemology 2\. quantitative skills 3\. ethics

I certainly don't disagree with the value of learning about these things. But
while epistemology and quantitative skills might help make the scientific
process more rigorous, I don't see that it will change competitiveness or the
inability to tackle big challenges or deter specialisation.

And while ethics is always a valuable thing to think about, I don't think it
helps scientific rigor or any of the author's stated problems.

Overall I found the piece a bit muddled.

~~~
gkop
Quite muddled.

------
thaumasiotes
Sure, let's "put back" something that was never there in the first place.
Philosophiae Doctor is just the name of the degree. Where did it come from?
Let's ask wikipedia (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Philosophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Philosophy)
):

> In most of Europe, all fields other than theology, law, and medicine were
> traditionally known as philosophy, and in Germany and elsewhere in Europe
> the basic faculty of (liberal) arts was known as the faculty of philosophy.

~~~
vacri
Philosophy is also responsible for the scientific method and things like the
null hypothesis. There's a _strong_ tendency for 'hard science' folks to look
down their noses at philosophy, but the truth is that the fundamentals of
their research is squarely due to the philosophy. Philosophy is responsible
for scientists developing the methods of rigorous observation.

Source: I once looked down my nose at philosophy, then I started doing first-
priciples on the methodology I was taught. Turns out that 'philosophy of
science' is a field unto itself.

~~~
mattmanser
You've got it backwards. It's not like a bunch of philosophers sat round and
came up with the scientific method and until they did that there was no
science. Scientists experimented and tried to justify their conclusions
(sometimes badly or incorrectly), which lead to the philosophy of science.
Karl Popper was a recent philosopher, not a forming giant of science, he
rationalized the scientific method with falsifiability after the fact, after
Einstein's Theory of Relativity, for example.

It's also easy to get the two mixed up as Philosophy basically used to be the
nascent 'science'.

It's also worth reading this before you get too attached to philosophy:

[http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html)

Ultimately present day philosophy, last I looked and certainly since
Wittgenstein, is all about playing with word meaning and almost upfront about
it, but pg argues in reality it always was like that.

~~~
ThomPete
You are both right and wrong. Philosophy (asking questions) and science
(testing questions) are depending on each other.

~~~
cbd1984
> Philosophy (asking questions) and science (testing questions) are depending
> on each other.

Only in the instances where philosophy asks questions science can test.

Questions like "What is The Good?" and "Is it morally right to do this thing?"
are not those kinds of questions.

~~~
vacri
Philosophy also discusses things like how we consider a answer to be robust;
stuff we now consider pretty ingrained. It's not all religiose has-no-answer
pondering.

It's just that most of the 'ingrained' stuff has been settled now, and people
are more interested in writing about new, unanchored stuff. The same is true
of science - few professional researchers bother retreading settled ground.
How often do you see an article by modern professional scientists that examine
the basics of the electrical resistivity of copper?

------
thefastlane
The Senior Executive Provost of Whatever sees your department as nothing but a
cost center. Literally. I agree completely with the author, but I'll add one
more thing: we need big ideas to overcome the market-fundamentalist ideology
that drives university administrations today.

------
teekert
I had a friend/college from Russia, he told this _is_ the case there. During
the thesis defense there is a section reserved for Philosophy (of life,
meaning etc). Any Russians care to elaborate?

~~~
nobodyshere
Can't elaborate on the thesis, but prior to enrolling for a PhD program you
indeed have to pass a philosophy exam. This is usually considered the most
difficult. Passed it in summer.

~~~
Grue3
I remember taking this. I had to answer something about socialism or marxism
or whatever (I remember having to name the prominent socialist thinkers). This
was in the 2000s, by the way. I got 3 points out of 5. I passed the other
exams, math and English, perfectly, and that was not enough. I only got
accepted due to personal recommendation of my scientific advisor. Since then
I'm of the opinion that "Ph" is complete bullshit.

~~~
nobodyshere
I prefer to think of "Ph" as a tradition.

~~~
OJFord
I would love a Doctorate of Tradition. Would never expect to be hired, though.

------
tenkabuto
I find it odd that one's exposure to and encouraging of bigger-thinking is
somewhat reserved until the PhD level and that, after a long while of not
exposing or encouraging such, our systems had ever expected people to suddenly
think big once at the PhD level.

It may be more productive to have the expectation of bigger-thinking
introduced earlier and let that expectation be realized more fully at the PhD
level.

~~~
rubidium
This 100x.

By the time you're getting your PhD, the college graduate should have read the
classics, done at least 1st year level calculus, biology, physics, ethics,
philosophy, and 2-4 years of a foreign language.

High school and undergraduate is the time to be broad-minded. PhD is for very
focused work (with the big picture in mind).

Personally, I read the classics and learned Greek and Latin (high school),
then in college took 8 courses of philosophy, 2 of Spanish, 2 in economics, 4
in business/entrepreneurship, and a smattering of other interesting things
(art, music, etc...) while getting a Physics major.

Then I went and spent 6 years learning more about one thing than anyone in the
world.

