Don't become a scientist!

by VM44 25 Replies latest jw friends

  • VM44
    VM44

    Don't Become a Scientist!

    Jonathan I. Katz

    Professor of Physics

    Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.

    Are you thinking of becoming a scientist? Do you want to uncover the mysteries of nature, perform experiments or carry out calculations to learn how the world works? Forget it!

    Science is fun and exciting. The thrill of discovery is unique. If you are smart, ambitious and hard working you should major in science as an undergraduate. But that is as far as you should take it. After graduation, you will have to deal with the real world. That means that you should not even consider going to graduate school in science. Do something else instead: medical school, law school, computers or engineering, or something else which appeals to you.

    Why am I (a tenured professor of physics) trying to discourage you from following a career path which was successful for me? Because times have changed (I received my Ph.D. in 1973, and tenure in 1976). American science no longer offers a reasonable career path. If you go to graduate school in science it is in the expectation of spending your working life doing scientific research, using your ingenuity and curiosity to solve important and interesting problems. You will almost certainly be disappointed, probably when it is too late to choose another career.

    American universities train roughly twice as many Ph.D.s as there are jobs for them. When something, or someone, is a glut on the market, the price drops. In the case of Ph.D. scientists, the reduction in price takes the form of many years spent in ``holding pattern'' postdoctoral jobs. Permanent jobs don't pay much less than they used to, but instead of obtaining a real job two years after the Ph.D. (as was typical 25 years ago) most young scientists spend five, ten, or more years as postdocs. They have no prospect of permanent employment and often must obtain a new postdoctoral position and move every two years. For many more details consult the Young Scientists' Network or read the account in the May, 2001 issue of the Washington Monthly.

    As examples, consider two of the leading candidates for a recent Assistant Professorship in my department. One was 37, ten years out of graduate school (he didn't get the job). The leading candidate, whom everyone thinks is brilliant, was 35, seven years out of graduate school. Only then was he offered his first permanent job (that's not tenure, just the possibility of it six years later, and a step off the treadmill of looking for a new job every two years). The latest example is a 39 year old candidate for another Assistant Professorship; he has published 35 papers. In contrast, a doctor typically enters private practice at 29, a lawyer at 25 and makes partner at 31, and a computer scientist with a Ph.D. has a very good job at 27 (computer science and engineering are the few fields in which industrial demand makes it sensible to get a Ph.D.). Anyone with the intelligence, ambition and willingness to work hard to succeed in science can also succeed in any of these other professions.

    Typical postdoctoral salaries begin at $27,000 annually in the biological sciences and about $35,000 in the physical sciences (graduate student stipends are less than half these figures). Can you support a family on that income? It suffices for a young couple in a small apartment, though I know of one physicist whose wife left him because she was tired of repeatedly moving with little prospect of settling down. When you are in your thirties you will need more: a house in a good school district and all the other necessities of ordinary middle class life. Science is a profession, not a religious vocation, and does not justify an oath of poverty or celibacy.

    Of course, you don't go into science to get rich. So you choose not to go to medical or law school, even though a doctor or lawyer typically earns two to three times as much as a scientist (one lucky enough to have a good senior-level job). I made that choice too. I became a scientist in order to have the freedom to work on problems which interest me. But you probably won't get that freedom. As a postdoc you will work on someone else's ideas, and may be treated as a technician rather than as an independent collaborator. Eventually, you will probably be squeezed out of science entirely. You can get a fine job as a computer programmer, but why not do this at 22, rather than putting up with a decade of misery in the scientific job market first? The longer you spend in science the harder you will find it to leave, and the less attractive you will be to prospective employers in other fields.

    Perhaps you are so talented that you can beat the postdoc trap; some university (there are hardly any industrial jobs in the physical sciences) will be so impressed with you that you will be hired into a tenure track position two years out of graduate school. Maybe. But the general cheapening of scientific labor means that even the most talented stay on the postdoctoral treadmill for a very long time; consider the job candidates described above. And many who appear to be very talented, with grades and recommendations to match, later find that the competition of research is more difficult, or at least different, and that they must struggle with the rest.

    Suppose you do eventually obtain a permanent job, perhaps a tenured professorship. The struggle for a job is now replaced by a struggle for grant support, and again there is a glut of scientists. Now you spend your time writing proposals rather than doing research. Worse, because your proposals are judged by your competitors you cannot follow your curiosity, but must spend your effort and talents on anticipating and deflecting criticism rather than on solving the important scientific problems. They're not the same thing: you cannot put your past successes in a proposal, because they are finished work, and your new ideas, however original and clever, are still unproven. It is proverbial that original ideas are the kiss of death for a proposal; because they have not yet been proved to work (after all, that is what you are proposing to do) they can be, and will be, rated poorly. Having achieved the promised land, you find that it is not what you wanted after all.

    What can be done? The first thing for any young person (which means anyone who does not have a permanent job in science) to do is to pursue another career. This will spare you the misery of disappointed expectations. Young Americans have generally woken up to the bad prospects and absence of a reasonable middle class career path in science and are deserting it. If you haven't yet, then join them. Leave graduate school to people from India and China, for whom the prospects at home are even worse. I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs.

    If you are in a position of leadership in science then you should try to persuade the funding agencies to train fewer Ph.D.s. The glut of scientists is entirely the consequence of funding policies (almost all graduate education is paid for by federal grants). The funding agencies are bemoaning the scarcity of young people interested in science when they themselves caused this scarcity by destroying science as a career. They could reverse this situation by matching the number trained to the demand, but they refuse to do so, or even to discuss the problem seriously (for many years the NSF propagated a dishonest prediction of a coming shortage of scientists, and most funding agencies still act as if this were true). The result is that the best young people, who should go into science, sensibly refuse to do so, and the graduate schools are filled with weak American students and with foreigners lured by the American student visa.

  • cameo-d
    cameo-d

    Probably good advice.

    D r. Mario Alberto Vargas Olvera , age 52. Died: Oct. 6, 2007 as a result of several blunt-force injuries to his head and neck. Ruled as murder. Found in his home. He was a nationally and internationally recognized biologist.

    Lee Jong-woo , age 61. Died: May 22, 2006 after suffering a blood clot on the brain. Lee was spearheading the organization's fight against global threats from bird flu, AIDS and other infectious diseases. WHO director-general since 2003, Lee was his country's top international official. The affable South Korean, who liked to lighten his press conferences with jokes, was a keen sportsman with no history of ill-health, according to officials.

    Leonid Strachunsky . Died: June 8, 2005 after being hit on the head with a champagne bottle. Strachunsky specialized in creating microbes resistant to biological weapons. Strachunsky was found dead in his hotel room in Moscow, where hed come from Smolensk en route to the United States. Investigators are looking for a connection between the murder of this leading bio weapons researcher and the hepatitis outbreak in Tver, Russia.

    Robert J. Lull , age 66. Died: May 19, 2005 of multiple stab wounds. Despite his missing car and apparent credit card theft, homicide Inspector Holly Pera said investigators aren't convinced that robbery was the sole motive for Lull's killing. She said a robber would typically have taken more valuables from Lull's home than what the killer left with. Lull had been chief of nuclear medicine at San Francisco General Hospital since 1990 and served as a radiology professor at UCSF. He was past president of the American College of Nuclear Physicians and the San Francisco Medical Society and served as editor of the medical society's journal, San Francisco Medicine, from 1997 to 1999. Lee Lull said her former husband was a proponent of nuclear power and loved to debate his political positions with others.

    Todd Kauppila , age 41. Died: May 8, 2005 of hemorrhagic pancreatitis at the Los Alamos hospital, according to the state medical examiner's office. Picture of him was not available to due secret nature of his work. This is his funeral picture. His death came two days after Kauppila publicly rejoiced over news that the lab's director was leaving. Kauppila was fired by director Pete Nanos on Sept. 23, 2004 following a security scandal. Kauppila said he was fired because he did not immediately return from a family vacation during a lab investigation into two classified computer disks that were thought to be missing. The apparent security breach forced Nanos to shut down the lab for several weeks. Kauppila claimed he was made a scapegoat over the disks, which investigators concluded never existed. The mistake was blamed on a clerical error. After he was fired, Kauppila accepted a job as a contractor at Bechtel Nevada Corp., a research company that works with Los Alamos and other national laboratories. He was also working on a new Scatter Reduction Grids in Megavolt Radiography focused on metal plates or crossed grids to act to stop the scattered radiation while allowing the unscattered or direct rays to pass through with other scientists: Scott Watson (LANL, DX-3), Chuck Lebeda (LANL, XTA), Alan Tubb (LANL, DX-8), and Mike Appleby (Tecomet Thermo Electron Corp.)

    David Banks , age 55. Died: May 8, 2005. Banks, based in North Queensland, died in an airplane crash, along with 14 others. He was known as an Agro Genius inventing the mosquito trap used for cattle. Banks was the principal scientist with quarantine authority, Biosecurity Australia, and heavily involved in protecting Australians from unwanted diseases and pests. Most of Dr Banks' work involved preventing potentially devastating diseases making their way into Australia. He had been through Indonesia looking at the potential for foot and mouth disease to spread through the archipelago and into Australia. Other diseases he had fought to keep out of Australian livestock herds and fruit orchards include classical swine fever, Nipah virus and Japanese encephalitis.

    Dr. Douglas James Passaro , age 43. Died April 18, 2005 from unknown cause in Oak Park, Illinois. Dr. Passaro was a brilliant epidemiologist who wanted to unlock the secrets of a spiral-shaped bacteria that causes stomach disease. He was a professor who challenged his students with real-life exercises in bioterrorism. He was married to Dr. Sherry Nordstrom..

    Geetha Angara , age 43. Died: February 8, 2005. This formerly missing chemist was found in a Totowa, New Jersey water treatment plant's tank. Angara, 43, of Holmdel, was last seen on the night of Feb. 8 doing water quality tests at the Passaic Valley Water Commission plant in Totowa, where she worked for 12 years. Divers found her body in a 35-foot-deep sump opening at the bottom of one of the emptied tanks. Investigators are treating Angara's death as a possible homicide. Angara, a senior chemist with a doctorate from New York University, was married and mother of three.

    Jeong H. Im , age 72. Died: January 7, 2005. Korean Jeong H. Im, died of multiple stab wounds to the chest before firefighters found in his body in the trunk of a burning car on the third level of the Maryland Avenue Garage. A retired research assistant professor at the University of Missouri - Columbia and primarily a protein chemist, MUPD with the assistance of the Columbia Police Department and Columbia Fire Department are conducting a death investigation of the incident. A "person of interest" described as a male 6'–6'2" wearing some type of mask possible a painters mask or drywall type mask was seen in the area of the Maryland Avenue Garage. Dr. Im was primarily a protein chemist and he was a researcher in the field.

    Darwin Kenneth Vest , born April 22, 1951, was an internationally renowned entomologist, expert on hobo spiders and other poisonous spiders and snakes. Darwin disappeared in the early morning hours of June 3, 1999 while walking in downtown Idaho Falls, Idaho (USA). The family believes foul play was involved in his disappearance. A celebration of Darwin's life was held in Idaho Falls and Moscow on the one-year anniversary of his disappearance. The services included displays of Darwin's work and thank you letters from school children and teachers. Memories of Darwin were shared by at least a dozen speakers from around the world and concluded with the placing of roses and a memorial wreath in the Snake River. A candlelight vigil was also held that evening on the banks of the Snake River.

    Darwin was declared legally dead the first week of March 2004 and now the family is in the process of obtaining restraining orders against several companies who saw fit to use his name and photos without permission. His brother David is legal conservator of the estate and his sister Rebecca is handling issues related to Eagle Rock Research and ongoing research projects.

    Media help in locating Darwin is welcome. Continuing efforts to solve this mystery include recent DNA sampling. Stories about his disappearance continue to appear throughout the world. Issues surrounding missing adult investigations have received new attention following the tragedies of 911.

    Tom Thorne , age 64; Beth Williams , age 53; Died: December 29, 2004. Two wild life scientists, Husband-and-wife wildlife veterinarians who were nationally prominent experts on chronic wasting disease and brucellosis were killed in a snowy-weather crash on U.S. 287 in northern Colorado.

    Taleb Ibrahim al-Daher . Died: December 21, 2004. Iraqi nuclear scientist was shot dead north of Baghdad by unknown gunmen. He was on his way to work at Diyala University when armed men opened fire on his car as it was crossing a bridge in Baqouba, 57 km northeast of Baghdad. The vehicle swerved off the bridge and fell into the Khrisan river. Al-Daher, who was a professor at the local university, was removed from the submerged car and rushed to Baqouba hospital where he was pronounced dead.

    John R. La Montagne , age 61. Died: November 2, 2004. Died while in Mexico, no cause stated, later disclosed as pulmonary embolism. PhD, Head of US Infectious Diseases unit under Tommie Thompson. Was NIAID Deputy Director. Expert in AIDS Program work and Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.

    Matthew Allison , age 32. Died: October 13, 2004. Fatal explosion of a car parked at an Osceola County, Fla., Wal-Mart store. It was no accident, Local 6 News has learned. Found inside a burned car. Witnesses said the man left the store at about 11 p.m. and entered his Ford Taurus car when it exploded. Investigators said they found a Duraflame log and propane canisters on the front passenger's seat. Allison had a college degree in molecular biology and biotechnology. Mohammed Toki Hussein al-Talakani , age 40. Died: September 5, 2004: Iraqi nuclear scientist was shot dead in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad. He was a practicing nuclear physicist since 1984.

    Professor John Clark , Age 52, Died: August 12, 2004. Found hanged in his holiday home. An expert in animal science and biotechnology where he developed techniques for the genetic modification of livestock; this work paved the way for the birth, in 1996, of Dolly the sheep, the first animal to have been cloned from an adult. Head of the science lab which created Dolly the sheep. Prof Clark led the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, one of the world s leading animal biotechnology research centers. He played a crucial role in creating the transgenic sheep that earned the institute worldwide fame. He was put in charge of a project to produce human proteins (which could be used in the treatment of human diseases) in sheep's milk. Clark and his team focused their study on the production of the alpha-I-antitryps in protein, which is used for treatment of cystic fibrosis. Prof Clark also founded three spin-out firms from Roslin - PPL Therapeutics, Rosgen and Roslin BioMed.

    Dr. John Badwey , age 54. Died: July 21, 2004. Scientist and accidental politician when he opposed disposal of sewage waste program of exposing humans to sludge. Suddenly developed pneumonia like symptoms then died in two weeks. Biochemist at Harvard Medical School specializing in infectious diseases.

    Dr. Bassem al-Mudares . Died: July 21, 2004. Mutilated body was found in the city of Samarra, Iraq*. He was a Phd. chemist and had been tortured before being killed. He was a drug company worker who had a chemistry doctorate.

    Professor Stephen Tabet , age 42. Died on July 6, 2004 from an unknown illness. He was an associate professor and epidemiologist at the University of Washington. A world-renowned HIV doctor and researcher who worked with HIV patients in a vaccine clinical trial for the HIV Vaccine Trials Network

    Dr. Larry Bustard , age 53. Died July 2, 2004 from unknown causes. He was a Sandia scientist in the Department of Energy who helped develop a foam spray to clean up congressional buildings and media sites during the anthrax scare in 2001. He worked at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. As an expert in bioterrorism, his team came up with a new technology used against biological and chemical agents.

    Edward Hoffman , age 62. Died July 1, 2004 from unknown causes. Hoffman was a professor and a scientist who also held leadership positions within the UCLA medical community. He worked to develop the first human PET scanner in 1973 at Washington University in St. Louis.

    John Mullen , age 67. Died: June 29, 2004. A Nuclear physicist poisoned with a huge dose of arsenic. A nuclear research scientist with McDonnell Douglas. Police investigating will not say how Mullen was exposed to the arsenic or where it came from. At the time of his death he was doing contract work for Boeing.

    Dr. Paul Norman , age 52. Died: June 27, 2004. From Salisbury Wiltshire. Killed when the single-engine Cessna 206 he was piloting crashed in Devon. Expert in chemical and biological weapons. He traveled the world lecturing on defending against the scourge of weapons of mass destruction. He was married with a 14-year-old son and a 20-year-old daughter, and was the chief scientist for chemical and biological defense at the Ministry of Defense's laboratory at Porton Down, Wiltshire. The crash site was examined by officials from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch and the wreckage of the aircraft was removed from the site to the AAIB base at Farnborough.

    Dr. Assefa Tulu , age 45. Died: June 24, 2004. Dr. Tulu joined the health department in 1997 and served for five years as the county's lone epidemiologist. He was charged with trackcing the health of the county, including the spread of diseases, such as syphilis, AIDS and measles. He also designed a system for detecting a bioterrorism attack involving viruses or bacterial agents. Tulu often coordinated efforts to address major health concerns in Dallas County, such as the West Nile virus outbreaks of the past few years, and worked with the media to inform the public. Found face down, dead in his office. The Dallas County Epidemiologist died of a hemorrhagic stroke.

    Antonina Presnyakova , age 46. Died: May 25, 2004. A Russian scientist at a former Soviet biological weapons laboratory in Siberia died after an accident with a needle laced with ebola. Scientists and officials said the accident had raised concerns about safety and secrecy at the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology, known as Vector, which in Soviet times specialized in turning deadly viruses into biological weapons. Vector has been a leading recipient of aid in an American program.

    Dr. Eugene Mallove , age 56. Died: May 14, 2004. Autopsy confirmed Mallove died as a result of several blunt-force injuries to his head and neck. Ruled as murder. Found at the end of his driveway. Alt. Energy Expert who was working on viable energy alternative program and announcement. Norwich Free Academy graduate.Beaten to death during an alleged robbery. Mallove was well respected for his knowledge of cold fusion. He had just published an "open letter" outlining the results of and reasons for his last 15 years in the field of "new energy research." Dr. Mallove was convinced it was only a matter of months before the world would actually see a free energy device.

    William T. McGuire, age 39. Found May 5, 2004, last seen late April 2004. Body found in three suitcases floating in Chesapeake Bay. He was NJ University Professor and Senior programmer analyst and adjunct professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. He emerged as one of the world's leading microbiologists and an expert in developing and overseeing multiple levels of biocontainment facilities. Ilsley Ingram , age 84. Died on April 12, 2004 from unknown causes. Ingram was Director of the Supraregional Haemophilia Reference Centre and the Supraregional Centre for the Diagnosis of Bleeding Disorders at the St. Thomas Hospital in London. Although his age is most likely the reason for his death, why wasn't this confirmed by the family in the news media?

    Mohammed Munim al-Izmerly, Died: April 2004. This distinguished Iraqi chemistry professor died in American custody from a sudden hit to the back of his head caused by blunt trauma. It was uncertain exactly how he died, but someone had hit him from behind, possibly with a bar or a pistol. His battered corpse turned up at Baghdad's morgue and the cause of death was initially recorded as "brainstem compression". It was discovered that US doctors had made a 20cm incision in his skull.

    Vadake Srinivasan, Died: March 13, 2004. Microbiologist crashed car into guard rail in Baton Rouge, LA. Death was ruled a stroke. He was originally from India, was one of the most-accomplished and respected industrial biologists in academia, and held two doctorate degrees. Dr. Michael Patrick Kiley, age 62. Died: January 24, 2004. Died of massive heart attack. Ebola, Mad Cow Expert, top of the line world class. It is interesting to note, he had a good heart, but it "gave out". Dr. Shope and Dr. Kiley were working on the lab upgrade to BSL 4 at the UTMB Galvaston lab for Homeland Security. The lab would have to be secure to house some of the deadliest pathogens of tropical and emerging infectious disease as well as bioweaponized ones.
    You an read about more of them here: http://www.stevequayle.com/index1.html

  • daniel-p
    daniel-p

    Pretty interesting. Makes me glad I'm aiming for a PhD in the behavioral sciences, although some of the things still hold true. I do not want to be a postdoc--and couldn't, really--and instead would like to work in the private sector as my primary career, then have the option of teaching part time when i want to retire.

  • daniel-p
    daniel-p

    cameo, what is? conspiracy theories? Either way, it detracts from the OP, in my opinion.

  • daniel-p
    daniel-p

    This gets more and more interesting. Aparently, this Katz guy is one wacky mofo who likes to get people stirred up. Read his essays here: http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/. Titles include In Defense of Homophobia, and Diversity is the Last Refuge of a Scoundrel. I keep thinking maybe it's his attempt at satire, but it looks like he's just a homophobe, ethnocentrist, nutjub with tenure.

  • daniel-p
    daniel-p

    Here's a rebuttal to Katz' "In Defense of Homophobia": http://www.queervisions.com/arch/2005/10/johnathan_katz.html.

  • daniel-p
    daniel-p

    In other words, I would take whatever this guy says with a HUGE grain of salt... although some of the things he says regarding the career or scientist are true.

  • Kudra
    Kudra

    yeah, -"10 years at a post-doc?" Never happens. You don't do more than one or two post-docs. My husband didn't even have to apply for a post-doc and he got two aggressive offers. His starting salary? 10s of thousands *above* what that guy wrote in his article. (when was this written?).

    A bunch of my friends have been graduating recently. They have been flown all over the country going to job interviews. Some fellow students have not yet defended (for their PhD) and they have job offers.

    Not only are there jobs but we actually get to do what we are pasionate about.

    If you do what you like and you do it well, chances are you will most likely do well.

    That article was lame. (no offense to the poster)

  • Kudra
    Kudra

    yes- btw, all the people I wrote about in my above post are scientists (climate, geology, archeology, dendrochronology).

    Behavioral science is cool too, daniel-p!! My dad is a psychologist (god save me!)

  • Kudra
    Kudra

    so funny- I *just* now got an email from a friend telling me she accepted a tenure-track faculty position yesterday!

    oh my...!

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