Comment by jcbeard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jcbeard | Hacker News Reader

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It's also about familial/class privilege. Once you get in with a good mentor (for academics that means advisor)...it sets you up for life. Getting into a good lab (train under uber mentor X or Y), no matter if your work is crap or not (definitely not implying elite lab work is poo, simply emphasizing to make a point) will gain you citations and socialization that a lesser one would not. Want to find good work from university of Smallville USA (or equiv int'l uni)...it exists, you just wouldn't know it from the hype. It's nobodies fault really (except our own), just the way the system is setup. To break out takes extreme amounts of work, and likely can't happen. So you end up with entrenched "genealogies" like the one for mathematics. I'd suspect you could find the same in computer science (despite it being a rather young field) and computer engineering. Things like double blind conference submissions help, but even there there is trendiness to consider as a limiting factor. Going further, breaking out of this rut requires us to disseminate how to get ahead more than anything else. Who should people talk to? Where should they apply? What programs are available? What are the best conferences/journals to submit to? These are all things people in these elite circles have (even if they don't have the $$ background) which provide them a leg up over everyone else. How we even the playing field, no idea...it's a monumental task. I for one start by not caring where somebody went to school, what they look like, what their gender is, nor how they pronounce things. Can we all do that? I certainly hope so.

>It's also about familial/class privilege. Once you get in with a good mentor (for academics that means advisor)...it sets you up for life. Getting into a good lab (train under uber mentor X or Y), no matter if your work is crap or not will gain you citations and socialization that a lesser one would not.

Which is similar to the reason why blacks haven't bounced back from slavery that "ended in 1865". The started from less than zero. Not only poor (immigrants also arrived and started poor), but also seen as dangerous/inferior etc and having to face Jim Crow laws etc, segregation (up until the 70s), redlining, poorly funded school districts, etc.

That held them down far longer than most other races, e.g. asians, jews, irish etc had to face (with the posisble exception of latinos), and never allowed them to build enough "familial/class privilege" to sustain mass movement to middle class/upper middle class.

In France this effect is very visible as well. Many of my colleagues at the CEA (a very good research institute where many people from the French elite system work) had parents working in research as well, many of them at the same institutes, and I think if you'd look at the statistics in detail you'd probably see some strong bias for self selection within the system. That doesn't mean that the people in the system aren't very good (they usually are), just that it's very difficult for outsiders to get in. This in turn is probably due to the lack of knowledge about how the admission system works: While the centralized tests are of course fair in the sense that everyone gets the same questions, being well prepared for them takes years of preparation that already starts by selecting the right school for your children.

What makes me a bit sad here is that there is probably much more scientific talent out there that we're not tapping into by not providing good study conditions for everyone, and this is something that we must change.

You see the same thing in the US at consulting companies. I've met many 'dynasty' families at consulting companies where the parents worked, children currently work, and their grandchildren intern at.

I dont think it is hard for outsiders to get in. I am exactly one such outsider.

It is true that being in a good lab helps a career, but these are nepotistic organizations. Join one as an undergrad to get experience then apply to one as a grad student or a paid research specialist. Ive seen that 100 more times than family members of colleagues.

This is actually not true in pure mathematics. Students usually do not publish with their advisors, there are no labs churning out publications, advisors do not apply their names to all the products of their groups, etc. In fact, the vast majority of math PhDs from almost all institutions end up leaving academia.

The small number of families seems more likely attributable to the small size of the enterprise and the difficulty of the subject matter. It's very hard to have a good idea and equally hard to publish it. I don't know of anyone in pure math who decides about the value of a piece of work based upon pedigree.

This is an interesting comment, but it's completely irrelevant in the context of the article. They are defining 'family' as PhD student-advisor relationship, not a biological one.

Yes, and that's what jcbeard meant too.

My mistake, I meant to reply to a comment further down.

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