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Comment by al2o3cr | Hacker News Reader

They also don't tell you we're currently significantly overproducing PhDs:

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previou...

How do you 'over-produce' phds... Society is getting 'too intelligent'? wtf?

Of course, when you are dumb as a brick, you will not finish PhD. However, finishing PhD will not make you "more intelligent". It will make you more knowledgeable in whatever you finished PhD in and it will make you prepared for doing science.

And if society needs 5 new highly knowledgeable scientists a year, then producing 100 new PhD holders a year is over-producing them.

>And if society needs 5 new highly knowledgeable scientists a year, then producing 100 new PhD holders a year is over-producing them.

The other way to look at it is that failing to employ 95 qualified scientists means society's leaving a free lunch on the table.

Or it's paying 95 people for years of free lunches without getting any return on that investment.

you miss my point to argue semantics.

What if the PhD is the ends (in and of itself), not just the means to some other end?

It's an academic credential to show an ability to do research, and to present that research, in an academically sound and rigorous method.

I would be quite surprised if the overflow of PhD holders in science spent that extra decade of double hours and crappy compensation just to say they did it, and expect that percentage is in reality negligible.

If more people are granted PhDs per year that want to do research than are needed, then there are too many produced. It's really that simple.

It's not. If it were, it wouldn't be called "training".

PhD is highly specific credential that has limited market value. But the "PhDs" in training are free labour. So schools "print labour" by over-producing students. The business model is "free tution" with indendtured servitude as the payment plan. This makes "sense" independent of the number of "professional" level jobs the schools have open or plan to hire for/fill. In fact, there is a sort of profit-maximization game that says minimize costs (paying jobs) and maximize profits (underpaid ones). So at that level it even "makes sense".

I would view PhDs as a pursuit, and achievement. Not a credential.

Unfortunately, in hard sciences, the world disagrees. There are many jobs that can demand a phD, and since there are plenty of phDs it doesn't detrimentally affect their hiring pool.

Database guy at an academic institute (MSc qualified).

A PHDs doesn't seem to be any sign of intelligence in the last two places I have worked. Quite the opposite at times.

I spent five years on a PhD programme at an elite institute in one of the top four research universities in the UK. Some of the graduate students there were genuinely brilliant. But some couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag. They still got PhDs, though, because they did everything their supervisor told them to.

Since leaving academia for industry, i have met a few more genuinely brilliant people. But they don't have PhDs, because that's not what you do in industry.

You can't make inferences about people's intelligence from their possession of PhDs. All it tells you is that they are capable of sustained hard work in trying conditions and on low pay, given a sufficient supply of coffee.

You miss my point... how do you "over produce" education?

It is not a 'product' it is a pursuit. It's like saying "Over producing exercise, or happiness".

Actually, it is a pursuit for the individual but a product for society. Ultimately, there exist two productive paths for a newly minted PhD - either join academia or enter the workforce. Both paths are governed by the laws of supply and demand. Ergo, it is possible to over-produce education, from the point of view of society.

Why does one have to be productive ?

You are mostly talking about American society as far as I can tell.

Why does one have to be productive ?

For sustained survival. It is reasonable to assume that anyone who decides to do a Phd is motivated to explore the depths of a topic and push the boundaries of human knowledge. However, that knowledge has value only in the scope of the world we live in. This value is governed by society, by us, and manifests itself as research grants, job opportunities etc. So one needs to consider this IF one wants to be productive (by doing a PhD). And of course, the whole point is void if one does not want to be productive, ergo, is not interested in his sustained survival.

This is a general observation. I don't see why it should be mostly about American society.

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