If you want access to the colleagues, tools, money, position, and credibility to do groundbreaking innovative work
I think it’s questionable whether any of that actually helps with groundbreaking innovative work (besides maybe money). Even in 1905 where the academic instituations where much more conductive to groundbreaking innovative work Einstein did his innovative work on the side while earning his paycheck as a patent clerk.
Today’s academic institutions are so effectively designed to prevent groundbreaking innovative work from happening that it might be better to go Einsteins road. Take a part-time job that pays the bills and spend the extra time doing groundbreaking innovative work without having a stiffling institution around you.
Sorry, but that’s major cherry-picking. Let me pre-register a micro-study.
In the last 3 years, there were 22 Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, biology, and economics. I’m willing to bet that of them, at least 20 have PhDs, which is what I meant by ” If you want access to the colleagues, tools, money, position, and credibility to do groundbreaking innovative work, you’re going to have to go through the maze.”
Result:
All 22 STEM Nobel Prize winners from 2018-2019 had PhDs or MDs (which is a PhD equivalent).
Discussion:
This is some evidence that a terminal degree is ~necessary to do groundbreaking STEM work. It makes sense. Scientific equipment is expensive, data gathering is hard, it helps not to have to spend 20-40 hours per week on other forms of work, the PhD pipeline makes it easier to network and learn practical on-the-job scientific skills, and having a PhD makes others more likely to trust your work.
For follow-up studies, it would be useful to use other metrics of who’s done groundbreaking STEM work. Examples might include:
Fields medal winners (all 4 2018 winners started a PhD, and 3 appear to have completed it)
Open Philanthropy grant winners (first 3 individuals mentioned in Scientific Research/Human Health and Wellbeing grants are all PhDs—just the first place I looked)
Just based on poking around like this, I feel quite confident that I am correct. A PhD is virtually a requirement to do groundbreaking work in STEM. You could say that Eliezar Yudkowsky, who’s never completed high school, is doing groundbreaking work. But he has no proven results, and from what I’ve seen, virtually everyone else at MIRI has a PhD (correct me if I’m wrong).
List of STEM Laureates 2018-2019:
Arthur Ashkin: Cornell University (MS, PhD)
Gérard Mourou: Pierre and Marie Curie University (PhD)
Donna Strickland: University of Rochester (MS, PhD)
Frances H. Arnold: University of California, Berkeley (MS, PhD)
George P. Smith: Harvard University (PhD)
Greg Winter: Trinity College, Cambridge (MA, PhD)
James P. Allison: University of Texas, Austin (BS, MS, PhD)
Tasuku Honjo: Kyoto University (BS, MD, PhD)
William Nordhaus: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D.)
Paul Romer: University of Chicago (SB, PhD)
James Peebles: Princeton University (MS, PhD)
Michel Mayor: University of Geneva (PhD)
Didier Queloz: University of Geneva (MS, DEA, PhD)
John B. Goodenough: University of Chicago (MS, PhD)
M. Stanley Whittingham: New College, Oxford (BA, MA, DPhil)
Akira Yoshino: Osaka University (PhD)
William Kaelin Jr.: Duke University (BS, MD)
Peter J. Ratcliffe: College, Cambridge (MB BChir, MD)
Gregg L. Semenza: University of Pennsylvania (MD, PhD)
Abhijit Banerjee: Harvard University (PhD)
Esther Duflo: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD)
It is quite plausible that the Noble Prize is given to more credentialed people, either for the work/ideas of others or over the more important work/ideas of others, because they are credentialed. There’s also a huge selection effect of who chooses to get a PhD, and a large time delay so you’re measuring what a PhD used to be when it meant something different.
I also don’t think MD is the same thing as a PhD in context, and it is quite the credential—doing the things an MD does without an MD isn’t hard to fund, it’s outright illegal.
Another way to measure things might be to take a historical list of important discoveries-yet-to-be-made, and look at the credentials of the person who made them. This sounds like it needs a longer fact post, so I’ll have that up when I get a chance.
There’s little groundbreaking work currently done and as a result we have the great stagnation. Nobel Prizes do require a certain academic contribution but they also require networking and winning academic politcal competitions.
Counting winning those status competitions as proxy for groundbreaking work is an illustration for everything that’s wrong with academia today and preferring status over actual scientific results.
Do you think any of the names on your list provide the kind of groundbreaking work that Einstein was able to do twice in 1905?
Apart from that today’s academic enviroment is not the same it was when Arthur Ashkin went to Bell Labs. He might have needed a degree to get to Bell Labs. The fact that he got the Nobel Price in 2018 for work over 30 years old is again a sign that our academic system isn’t producing much groundbreaking work lately.
The nearest we have to Bell Labs is Google X which doesn’t require degrees.
Scientific equipment is expensive, data gathering is hard,
Scientific equipment is expensive but it can drive you to try to make us of the scientific equipment instead of doing the kind of groundbreaking work Einstein did where you work conceptually to reorder existing data.
it helps not to have to spend 20-40 hours per week on other forms of work
That’s basically saying it helps not to be in academia. Within academia there are few jobs where you don’t have to spend 20-40 hours for teaching and administration per week.
I think it’s questionable whether any of that actually helps with groundbreaking innovative work (besides maybe money). Even in 1905 where the academic instituations where much more conductive to groundbreaking innovative work Einstein did his innovative work on the side while earning his paycheck as a patent clerk.
Today’s academic institutions are so effectively designed to prevent groundbreaking innovative work from happening that it might be better to go Einsteins road. Take a part-time job that pays the bills and spend the extra time doing groundbreaking innovative work without having a stiffling institution around you.
Sorry, but that’s major cherry-picking. Let me pre-register a micro-study.
In the last 3 years, there were 22 Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, biology, and economics. I’m willing to bet that of them, at least 20 have PhDs, which is what I meant by ” If you want access to the colleagues, tools, money, position, and credibility to do groundbreaking innovative work, you’re going to have to go through the maze.”
Result:
All 22 STEM Nobel Prize winners from 2018-2019 had PhDs or MDs (which is a PhD equivalent).
Discussion:
This is some evidence that a terminal degree is ~necessary to do groundbreaking STEM work. It makes sense. Scientific equipment is expensive, data gathering is hard, it helps not to have to spend 20-40 hours per week on other forms of work, the PhD pipeline makes it easier to network and learn practical on-the-job scientific skills, and having a PhD makes others more likely to trust your work.
For follow-up studies, it would be useful to use other metrics of who’s done groundbreaking STEM work. Examples might include:
Fields medal winners (all 4 2018 winners started a PhD, and 3 appear to have completed it)
Open Philanthropy grant winners (first 3 individuals mentioned in Scientific Research/Human Health and Wellbeing grants are all PhDs—just the first place I looked)
Just based on poking around like this, I feel quite confident that I am correct. A PhD is virtually a requirement to do groundbreaking work in STEM. You could say that Eliezar Yudkowsky, who’s never completed high school, is doing groundbreaking work. But he has no proven results, and from what I’ve seen, virtually everyone else at MIRI has a PhD (correct me if I’m wrong).
List of STEM Laureates 2018-2019:
Arthur Ashkin: Cornell University (MS, PhD)
Gérard Mourou: Pierre and Marie Curie University (PhD)
Donna Strickland: University of Rochester (MS, PhD)
Frances H. Arnold: University of California, Berkeley (MS, PhD)
George P. Smith: Harvard University (PhD)
Greg Winter: Trinity College, Cambridge (MA, PhD)
James P. Allison: University of Texas, Austin (BS, MS, PhD)
Tasuku Honjo: Kyoto University (BS, MD, PhD)
William Nordhaus: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D.)
Paul Romer: University of Chicago (SB, PhD)
James Peebles: Princeton University (MS, PhD)
Michel Mayor: University of Geneva (PhD)
Didier Queloz: University of Geneva (MS, DEA, PhD)
John B. Goodenough: University of Chicago (MS, PhD)
M. Stanley Whittingham: New College, Oxford (BA, MA, DPhil)
Akira Yoshino: Osaka University (PhD)
William Kaelin Jr.: Duke University (BS, MD)
Peter J. Ratcliffe: College, Cambridge (MB BChir, MD)
Gregg L. Semenza: University of Pennsylvania (MD, PhD)
Abhijit Banerjee: Harvard University (PhD)
Esther Duflo: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD)
Michael Kremer: Harvard University (AB, AM, PhD)
It is quite plausible that the Noble Prize is given to more credentialed people, either for the work/ideas of others or over the more important work/ideas of others, because they are credentialed. There’s also a huge selection effect of who chooses to get a PhD, and a large time delay so you’re measuring what a PhD used to be when it meant something different.
I also don’t think MD is the same thing as a PhD in context, and it is quite the credential—doing the things an MD does without an MD isn’t hard to fund, it’s outright illegal.
Another way to measure things might be to take a historical list of important discoveries-yet-to-be-made, and look at the credentials of the person who made them. This sounds like it needs a longer fact post, so I’ll have that up when I get a chance.
There’s little groundbreaking work currently done and as a result we have the great stagnation. Nobel Prizes do require a certain academic contribution but they also require networking and winning academic politcal competitions.
Counting winning those status competitions as proxy for groundbreaking work is an illustration for everything that’s wrong with academia today and preferring status over actual scientific results.
Do you think any of the names on your list provide the kind of groundbreaking work that Einstein was able to do twice in 1905?
Apart from that today’s academic enviroment is not the same it was when Arthur Ashkin went to Bell Labs. He might have needed a degree to get to Bell Labs. The fact that he got the Nobel Price in 2018 for work over 30 years old is again a sign that our academic system isn’t producing much groundbreaking work lately.
The nearest we have to Bell Labs is Google X which doesn’t require degrees.
Scientific equipment is expensive but it can drive you to try to make us of the scientific equipment instead of doing the kind of groundbreaking work Einstein did where you work conceptually to reorder existing data.
That’s basically saying it helps not to be in academia. Within academia there are few jobs where you don’t have to spend 20-40 hours for teaching and administration per week.