The PhD Octopus (1903) | Hacker News Reader

The PhD Octopus (1903)

uky.edu

Fortunately, what's written there is not true in all places at all times. For example, I got my PhD in math at Harvard in the 1970s. My PhD adviser, Andy Gleason, was a terrifically nice guy, yet seemed oddly unsympathetic to the stresses of the PhD process. I later realized that he didn't have a PhD himself ... when I noted that absence in his bio as he was elected to be president of the American Mathematical Society.

And by the way -- while I think he sort of understood what I was working on (the theorem that came to be known as the Mertens-Neyman result for stochastic games -- they scooped me by a few months, but I got my degree anyway), I'm nearly certain that nobody else in the rest of the department did. It didn't matter. When it came to approving/disapproving theses, our department seemed quite politics-free.

On the other hand, I heard horror stories from my dorm-mates about other departments, such as history and Slavic linguistics. Perhaps the "harder" subjects had better standards of objectivity. Perhaps I was just lucky.

And by the way -- it also was not the case that an undergraduate degree was needed for admission to grad school. Discovering this fact on my junior year Spring break grad school trip let me greatly change the negotiating dynamics around degree requirements at my undergraduate institution. When it as all over, the dean who had originally given me the most grief politely thanked me for bothering to get my undergrad degree.

Here's the real problem:

> When the thesis came to be read by our committee, we could not pass it. Brilliancy and originality by themselves won't save a thesis for the doctorate; it must also exhibit a heavy technical apparatus of learning; and this our candidate had neglected to bring to bear. So, telling him that he was temporarily rejected, we advised him to pad out the thesis properly, and return with it next year

This is not much of an exaggeration. Getting a Ph.D. is as much (maybe more) about demonstrating your ability to shmooze, defer to authority and put up with bullshit for an extended period of time as it is about learning or doing good research.

Did we read the same paragraph? The problem with his first thesis was that, though he presented a brilliant and original result, he didn’t show that he’d studied enough prior research.

Nothing to do with schmoozing, everything to do with scholarly integrity.

The actual complaint was that the thesis failed to "exhibit a heavy technical apparatus of learning." I'm not sure exactly how you get from there to "didn’t show that he’d studied enough prior research".

That extrapolation notwithstanding, what exactly do you think "shmoozing" means? In academia it does not mean going to your committee's cocktail parties and letting them win at golf. It means citing their work (i.e. "demonstrating that you have studied prior research") so that they can then use the fact that they are highly referenced to advance their own careers.

When I was preparing for my oral exam, I was given something like 1,200 pages of material to read by my committee. I read it.

During the exam, in addition to the expected technical questions, I was asked things like, "What lab did this work come out of? Who runs that lab?"

In other words, "Do you understand the political and funding environment in which you're going to be operating if you continue working in this field?" Fortunately, I had been to a few conferences and met some of these people (also not an accident on the part of my professors), so I knew the answers to these questions. But the lesson stuck.

>This is not much of an exaggeration. Getting a Ph.D. is as much (maybe more) about demonstrating your ability to shmooze, defer to authority and put up with bullshit for an extended period of time as it is about learning or doing good research.

As opposed to all the various professional competencies and activities which involve... zero schmoozing, total defiance of authority, and never tolerating bullshit for a single moment? I feel very confused here. Doing things you don't find fun at the time is what work is.

This is an excellent support to the thought that, once provided with a standard metric, people tend to focus only on satisfying that metric.

It's kind of understandable. In some professions we have accreditation and licenses; others sometimes clamor for the same thing. That fellow's Ph. D. diploma on the wall was the effective equivalent of "licensed practitioner of teaching the Liberal Arts" or something like that. That's why the employer insisted on it.

Would we say that a dentist's license had nothing to do with whether they can do dentistry and cheerfully go to one that doesn't have one?

Fact is that by getting the Ph. D., the guy did prove that he was "good" in some way; he had the academic "muscle" and that is relevant to the teaching, even if the subject isn't the same.

You absolutely cannot say that philosophy is irrelevant to literature. That is to say if we examine the statement "[w]e wrote again, pointing out that a Ph.D. in philosophy would prove little anyhow as to one's ability to teach literature" it doesn't really hold up. That fellow simply doesn't cast aside his philosophy background when he gets up in front of the literature class! The way we analyze literature all has philosophical underpinnings. Literature can carry philosphical points of view, and consciously so, even. Fictional literature has been used to transmit philosophical thought, from Socratic dialogues of ancient greece to works like the novels of Ayn Rand.

Considering that he was a professor of philosophy and brother to a novelist, I don't think that William James supposed philosophy to be irrelevant to literature. "Casting one's philosophy background aside" is one thing, neglecting to get a Ph.D. in it quite another.

It's the same though; if you proclaim that a Ph. D. (i.e. some more or less objective demonstration of competence) in philosophy is not relevant to teaching literature, you are in fact saying that philosphy itself is not relevant to teaching literature. If philosophy is relevant to teaching literature, then the instructor's level of achievement matters in some way. If it is relevant, then knowing next to jack squat about philosphy is objectively worse contribution of relevance than being an expert in it with a extensive background. If the level of achievement matters, then so do whatever hoops we use for measuring and accrediting it, like "Ph. D".

Since the school chose an instructor with a philosphy background, they asked that he have an objective certificate of high achievement in that respective field. That was arguably better than asking for a Ph. D. in literature.

Without claiming to know what the administration of an anonymous college thought a century and some years ago, James's clause "after supporting himself by literary labor for three years" suggests to me that the college may have hired this man for his literary reputation rather than his philosophy background.

I do not say that philosophy itself is irrelevant either to literature or the teaching of literature. I will say that there have been very competent philosophers whose judgment in literature is at least suspect--think of Kant quoting the poetry of Frederick the Great, generally regarded as pretty bad stuff--and that there have been very competent writers on literature whose grasp of philosophy isn't strong.

Shall I go home and remove from my shelves the criticism and poetry of T.S. Eliot, who never bothered to show up and defend his Ph.D. thesis at Harvard?

The about face suggests that, as can be expected, more than one person was involved in the decision. At one point, Administrator X, being a principal influence in the hiring decision, was swayed by the literary reputation and influenced the hiring decision. Then later along comes Administrator Y and notices, "we hired this person who has no Ph. D, OMG!". Viewed from the outside, the school exhibits a kind of disordered, fickle personality: hiring someone for literary reputation without considering paper credentials one moment, and then fussing about the paper credentials the next moment.

Spot on.

No, you can argue that a PHD has zero correlations with teaching.

Picture a ven diagram where A overlaps with B, B overlaps with C, but AC does not overlap with A. Remove B and you have two circles that don't overlap at all.

But you also have a different diagram in which B has been removed; a different object.

Purge from your mind a whole aspect of who you are, and some other two parts become disconnected: uncontroversial to me.

The example also works the other way. In a hypothetical example of two non overlapping circles teaching and PHD don't suddenly overlap just because you draw a new circle encompassing some 3rd idea.

Saying A relates to B and B relates to C says nothing about A relating to C.

In some areas you absolutely want a strict standard, to your point on dentists. PhD is an interesting requirement, however, due to the variance in skillset, experience, and training an individual going through the educational process receives compared to vocational programs. The degree can substitute for a license, but it's going to be very noisy. Requiring it leads to less absolute diversity in a hiring pool (as opposed to categorical diversity) which may or may not be the goal of the institution. But once you've found a good hire, who can perform the function of the job to the client's satisfaction, the vocational or educational background is more or less unnecessary. To refer to your dentist example: it may take me a lot of encouragement to trust my Uncle Joe with no dental degree to work on my teeth, but once he's proven himself the need for institutional acknowledgement of his ability is trumped by his performance.

Another tangent point to consider: dentists and other vocationalists have existed long before a licensing board did, and someone, somewhere, got the first History PhD.

I would disagree about professional licensure, and think the same arguments apply there as in other areas, although maybe in different ways. In fact, I think the problem in licensed professions is even worse, because assumptions are never questioned, to avoid being called reckless, and have the weight of law.

In fact, I think this is a prime problem with healthcare in the US in the moment.

The problem James outlines is the same with professional fields: we assume that license X, which often requires degree A, is necessary for competence in an area, and that competence cannot be achieved in an area in any other way. As a result, we stop actually paying attention to competency per se, and focus on licensure, which is not the same. As a result of that, we lose choice: any other way of meeting a demand is assumed to be illegitimate and unsafe, which is untrue. Competition is lost, and monopoly is gained.

In your example, for instance, you suggest a hypothetical case where someone doesn't have a dental degree. But in reality, it's almost certainly not that that person would have no degree at all, and no experience, it's that they would have a different sort of degree, with a different sort of experience.

Dentists are maybe a poor example, because if anything, their profession is an example of one that is being stifled by current practice. I suspect that they are in a position to learn to do a lot more than they are, and are held back by professional licensing laws relative to MDs.

The appropriate example isn't "would you hire someone without a dental degree to treat your cavity?" It's "would you hire a dentist with appropriate surgical training to do jaw surgery?" Would you hire an optometrist with years of opthomological surgery training to do LASIK surgery? Would you hire a psychologist with pharmacology training to prescribe you lithium, or a psychologist with appropriate training to do TMS treatment of your depression? Would you trust your pharmacist to pick the right antibiotic for your infection, that has been precisely characterized by a lab already? What about a neuroscientist with clinical training to interpret your MRI scan?

Licenses, although well-intended, have become hindrances to lower cost and better choice. The tail is wagging the dog in professional fields exactly the way James suggested over a century ago.

But one's ability to conduct research and achieve a Ph.D. in a subject area in no way indicates one's ability to teach others in that same, or another, subject. Research skills do not equate to teaching skills - unless, perhaps, your area of expertise is in developmental and learning psychology.

> Would we say that a dentist's license had nothing to do with whether they can do dentistry and cheerfully go to one that doesn't have one?

The stakes in that case are rather higher. A literature teacher who screws up won't make your life anywhere near as miserable as a dentist who does likewise.

I can say from my own experience that a Ph.D. has no effect on the ability to teach. It's actually kind of weird in the way that if you want to teach high school you have to take education courses, but it is assumed at the university level that you just magically acquire the ability to teach in the course of doing your research.

I generally found the professors with a PhD to be more engaged, driven, and generally capable than those without. just my 2c.

I would guess that the internal qualities that drove them to seek the phd were the ones that made me prefer them.

How long ago was this? These days the only people who are likely to be teaching you at a university who don't have PhDs are PhD students. And they're less good at it largely because they don't have years of experience.

I wrapped up my BS in 2006.

A variety of people teaching underclass courses as the instructor of record were people with Master's degrees. A couple were ABD.

I would hesitate to say that older profs were better; it seemed bimodal: either they really were significantly better, or they really were not very good teachers. I almost always preferred the people with deep knowledge and passion for the subject, regardless of actual quality of teaching, myself. YMMV.

A number of universities employ "lecturers" and adjunct professors who do not have PhDs, especially for undergraduate courses, summer sessions, etc.

In modern times, I've found much the same with jobs and the requirement for a "B.S. in CS"

(three magical letter holder here)

In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, this requirement is often flexible. I tend to read it as "B.S. in CS, or sufficiently impressive relevant experience."

Amusingly, I have a "B.A. in CS". Given the subject, most people assume a B.S. if you just say "bachelors'", but in my particular case, they'd be wrong ;) I imagine this is somewhat like how you can get a doctorate in nursing.

(just wrapping up my own three magical letters too!)

I've seen this in many job descriptions, but in 30+ working years I've never seen an employer actually verify that a candidate had the credentials he claimed to have.

Tangential question:

> It seems to me high time to rouse ourselves to consciousness, and to cast a critical eye upon this decidedly grotesque tendency. Other nations suffer terribly from the Mandarin disease.

Does anyone know what this use of "Mandarin" is supposed to suggest? It sounds like a sort of Orientalist fear of exotic diseases, but seems like it could refer to something more specific. Just curious.

See here: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/mandarin

The relevant definitions are

1. (in the Chinese Empire) a member of any of the nine ranks of public officials, each distinguished by a particular kind of button worn on the cap.

6. an influential or powerful government official or bureaucrat.

It connotes a kind of bureaucratic meritocracy.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mandarin&allowed_in...

Judging by the etymology presented here, meaning officials, "mandarin chinese" being then "chinese as spoken by officials", I would take it as simply a rewording of his condemnation of the tendency for admiration of title in place of admiration of the title holder, which he otherwise goes on about.

A disease of officiality.

I don't know if an overtone suggesting a cultural judgement over some perceived chinese tendency for admiration of title is intended or not.

Mandarin as in Mandarinate, not as in the language.

I believe it's meant to disparage a bureaucratic, technocratic academy, in the sense of "you must jump through these hoops and pass these examinations to join the leadership / professoriate, regardless of your actual abilities."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_(bureaucrat)

The Chinese Imperial Examinations system determined who could hold which rank of government office based on grueling study and testing on Chinese literature.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination

The comparison the article is making is that the selection process is entirely orthagonal to the job, and the hoops that needed to be jumped through precluded any actual study of the things that mattered.

This was regarded at the time of the article as a really bad idea both within and outside China, and ended two years later after 1,700 years of use.

That is the current state of academia, IMHO.

Drat, I was hoping for a story about an actual cephalopod with a doctorate, like Octodad or something.

Yes. That would be a story worth reading about because the octopus has a PhD!

Give it up for Octograd

Note the assumption that intellectual distinction is native. That is an assumption that is counter to the American assumption that any man can become anything he wants given the effort and desire. The people who want and try to earn a phd without the native ability are the problem James is stating the universities are creating. This is the third class of persons.

The other interesting thing was how the third class of persons obtains a phd is subjective. "Thus, partiality in the favored cases; in the unfavored, blood on our hands; and in both a bad conscience,--are the results of our administration."

Interesting thoughts from a man who has "distinguished intellect"

Same kind of shit is still going on in silicon valley.

You think it's bad here? If you ever take the DC metro, look out the window at the Pentagon metro station (but others are often bad too). You will see exclusively two ad buys over all of the signs. The first is for some large defense contractor, usually Northrop, advertising weapons systems or IT services.

The other half of the ads are for "Graduate School" which is some sort of organization that confers masters and phds. Perfect for the aspiring bureaucrat that needs to check that qualification off the list.

I had a friend pulled in to one of these "health policy PhD" (she wasn't in the DC area) and she was excited to be in a degree program with high ranking bureaucrats in the HHS.

Edit: found a link to the organization, apparently they don't give out masters and phds... How confusing! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_School_USA

I never heard that this school (which used, I think, to be the Department of Agriculture Graduate School) gave out any degrees.

Having said that, you are correct about Washington, DC. Part of it, I think, is the rules around government contracting: if I can bill John Doe, B.A., for $x/hour, I can probably bill Richard Roe, M.S. for $(x+y)/hour or John O'Nokes, Ph.D. for $(x+y+z)/hour. The government contractors also can offer tuition reimbursement for their employees, untaxed, if the classes "maintain and improve" skills for the job then held.

In the words of Schopenhauer, "nothing in the world is so rare as a good judge."

Makes me glad I got my Ph.D.

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