Thank you. I am tired of hearing Obama and every other politician talk about how we need more scientists. We need less. Researchers are dying on the vine. There is not enough funding, and all across the country, labs are closing. For example, when I started grad school 10 years ago, approximately 20% of grants submitted to the National Cancer Institute could hope to be funded. Now it is about 5%. That 5% is not going to young researchers. It is being divided up among established labs just to keep them open. Politics dominates the funding process. If you want more scientists, you fund science. If not, you don't.
Exactly. To me, it is really a travesty that the profession and the way of knowing that has created the modern world is not adequately funded. In fact, it goes beyond that. I think scientists and academics in general are made to feel guilty for expecting to make a decent living. Based on the level of education, the contributions to society, and the time/energy that is spent specializing in a particular sub-field, salaries should at least be doubled.
Disagree. The amount of schooling you have should have little or nothing to do with what you get paid. I would like more money to do what I do, and so would everyone else in every industry in the history of people getting paid to do things. What most post-docs contribute to society is pretty much nothing. It's not their fault, as no one knows which avenues of research will pan out in the end. It's a noble goal to add to the body of knowledge, but not one that has a direct, significant impact on people in most cases. We all know what we're going to get paid going in, and we all hope that we can make it to a staff position one day. Post-doc pay isn't what needs to rise to make science better or more attractive. On the other hand, the number of staff positions is dwindling. This is a far bigger problem, because it robs young researchers of a goal, and strips them of motivation to do solid work, while also ensuring that high quality university professors will be scarcer in a few years after everyone has been fired for not having a grant. On a completely side note, if we're writing about science vs. data, and being sticklers about usage of science vs. data, then shouldn't we perhaps use data as a plural? It's not just mashable; most authors who write about data use the word as a singular. I don't mind people doing that colloquially, but a journalist should know better. I swear I'm not a grammar tyrant. This is just a pet peeve.That’s about what a person with five to 10 years in graduate school ought to be paid.
I think you make a good point, and I mostly agree. However, sometimes contributing the our body of knowledge leads to massive breakthroughs. In fact, if we didn't have scientists pursuing knowledge for knowledge's sake most of the biggest and most influential theories in human history would have never been discovered. I think investing money in theoretical research or research that doesn't seem to have a direct impact on people and the economy is still important.
Important? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that we need to be guaranteed a certain income. There's a trade off between pursuing what you love and making the most money. If you want the money you have to make some serious sacrifices in terms of lifestyle.
Ya, I can agree with that. It is my personal choice to pursue the path I am. However, the government just isn't funding theoretical research anymore (or at least its declining substantially). I fear that this will lead to people not being able to study nature just for the pure interest of doing so. There was a great TED talk I watched where a professor was interested in why a certain jellyfish adapted bioluminescence. As a result of her research she learned how bacterial quorum sensing worked and developed methods to better attack bacterial diseases in humans. She obviously hadn't planned on discovering this. And if the government had rejected her proposal to study jellyfish bioluminescence because "who cares about jellyfish bioluminescence" we never would have known.
Or the need for institutions other than government to fund research. I don't know how, though I'd be happy with having my dues to the AMS/SCIAM/ACM/IEEE/AAAI increase a lot if they used the extra money for grants.I fear that this will lead to people not being able to study nature just for the pure interest of doing so.
Those organizations and many others in biology and engineering are great, but they just can't throw around the kind of money the government can no matter how high dues go. For NIH, we're talking about $32 billion per year, or thereabouts. That's a crazy number that just can't be matched by anyone who can't print USD. The crazy thing is that the author of the piece suggests that the best course of action is that we start supporting candidates who promise to fund research. Sounds great until you realize that they don't exist. Pretty much ever. The only presidential candidate on the Dem side who mentioned it in 2008 was Clinton, and the only GOP member in the last couple election cycles was Gingrich. Everyone ridiculed him for his Moon base initiative, but at least it was something. Independent of party and other policy positions, I will support any candidate who throws their weight behind increased funding for NIH, NSF, et al.
No they can't, but then it's not at all certain that that kind of money is going to keep coming from the government either. Substantial and reliable government funding came because it was a military advantage, and is going away now that it isn't. If there isn't enough support to keep government funding anyway, then there needs to be some other way of supporting the work. Agreed, I just think it's a good time to consider what happens when those candidates continue not to appear.they just can't throw around the kind of money the government can no matter how high dues go.
Independent of party and other policy positions, I will support any candidate who throws their weight behind increased funding for NIH, NSF, et al.
Did the pay ever impact the choices you've made so far? Where are you at on this timeline? I just realized I know nothing about what you do and the world/industry you're in. And I want to know more. From the little I've read, it seems so political and ridiculous but you seem to love it. I guess I'm wondering: How did you figure out what you were going to do with your life? And how much of that life plan have you achieved? And what's next?We all know what we're going to get paid going in, and we all hope that we can make it to a staff position one day.
I never hesitated because of the money. Being poor kind of sucks, but it's more than offset by the fact that you get up and are excited to go to work everyday. It took me five years to do my PhD, at which time I never made more than $24,000, then I spent two years as a post-doc at about $40,000. The great thing about a science PhD, however, is that it's not an expense. The school pretty much always picks up the tab, so at least there's no debt to contend with. I didn't know that I would basically end up a biologist, but I was reasonably certain from a young age that I wanted to be a scientist. My grandfather worked as an engineer for the Navy and then was a high level administrator at NASA back before it was even called NASA (started as NACA). I always heard his stories about building and testing rockets ("We were literally writing the textbooks," is what he always said), and it made me want to be a physicist. When I finally went to grad school for physics, I went for biophysics, because I serendipitously discovered a love for biology when during a gen ed bio requirement, I came across a book called Full House by Stephen Jay Gould, which is one of my favorite books of all time. I haven't accomplished nearly what I'd like to, and I hope I don't until I die. I want to keep researching, and making interesting observations. It's what makes me tick. It's frustrating at times, because you can go for months with nothing interesting happening, but then shit like getting your study featured on the cover of the largest cancer publication happens (a work mk and I did together) and it's the greatest feeling in the world (he would never brag about it, but I don't mind ;): The great thing is that no matter how awesome your discovery, there's always more work to be done.
That's actually quite a bit different than this post. What the Maddox post is saying is that people are essentially posers, what this post is saying is that it's one thing to claim to love the products of science, but it's another thing to support and love the process of science. People love the data but our society doesn't fund the acquisition of it. Scientists are underpaid, underfunded and are closing up shop all over the US. Maddox's post is a rant (one I don't disagree with).
You have a point. I suppose what I meant was that Maddox also spoke up about his dislike of the Facebook page, but from a cultural perspective.
As an aside, are you through moving? How did everything go?
Oh yeah, we've been in the new place for about three months now. The new roommates have moved in and I couldn't have asked to live with better people. We just threw our first housewarming party on Friday and it was huge hit (we had a jam session going in the basement). The house is just a few blocks away from campus and about a half mile away from work. It's essentially what I anticipated last year being, except now. My parent's being poor has served nicely. Things are almost all sorted out, but I received so much financial aid that the whole of my senior year is covered. I'm taking some awesome classes and have made some cool new friends already. This year is the exact opposite of last year and I couldn't be happier. Thanks for checking up Papa Steve.