tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post2194394871118505618..comments2024-03-19T07:48:54.021-06:00Comments on Gus Van Horn: Why Will He Quit?Gus Van Hornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-16499415275861153022013-09-11T06:10:57.589-06:002013-09-11T06:10:57.589-06:00Yo, Gus, you write, "Regarding the greater pr...Yo, Gus, you write, "Regarding the greater problems you bring up, I think some of the problems the letter-writer brings up, particularly "selling" one's work dishonestly and entrenchment of pet theories, are (at least in part) byproducts of the distortions due to massive state funding. I also regard the last two problems you cite as byproducts of the first. Someone has to administer all that money, and Mises's Bureaucracy indicates lots the havoc of what that fact alone can wreak."<br /><br />I agree. I just don't know if I'd have anything interesting to add in drawing out all the possible interconnections.Snedcatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-17961596215174432292013-09-11T04:44:47.030-06:002013-09-11T04:44:47.030-06:00Snedcat,
Thanks for bringing up the possibility o...Snedcat,<br /><br />Thanks for bringing up the possibility of the blogger's writing quirks being ESL-related. I'd thought of that myself, but promptly forgot to say anything about it.<br /><br />Regarding the greater problems you bring up, I think some of the problems the letter-writer brings up, particularly "selling" one's work dishonestly and entrenchment of pet theories, are (at least in part) byproducts of the distortions due to massive state funding. I also regard the last two problems you cite as byproducts of the first. Someone has to administer all that money, and Mises's Bureaucracy indicates lots the havoc of what that fact alone can wreak.Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-19270708042018874272013-09-11T00:52:42.916-06:002013-09-11T00:52:42.916-06:00Yo, Gus, anyway, I've thought about the articl...Yo, Gus, anyway, I've thought about the article and have to think about it some more to see if there's anything I actually want to say about it. I don't agree with it in two respects: I don't think the situation's as dark as it paints, and in any case there are more serious problems in the university--failures in educational theory, distortions due to massive state funding, vast ballooning of administrative blubber, and structural problems.Snedcatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-9495902461172311392013-09-11T00:27:44.687-06:002013-09-11T00:27:44.687-06:00Or adjective by adjective, for that matter.Or adjective by adjective, for that matter.Snedcatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-62879085519388134772013-09-10T20:35:55.475-06:002013-09-10T20:35:55.475-06:00Steve D writes, "By the way, that particular ...Steve D writes, "By the way, that particular blog ‘Pascal Junod’ was poorly written and had a number of obvious grammatical mistakes and stylistic flaws to the point where it was starting to become painful to read. The student’s letter was actually higher quality writing and more compelling. Surely, an academic can do better?"<br /><br />Junod's probably French Swiss and his native language is French; his English is quite good except for places where he uses French constructions. For example, "worth to read" is common among French people speaking English, from <i>vaut lire</i>; more generally, French uses the infinitive where English would use either the infinitive or gerund and the English usage has to be learned verb by verb, so it's no surprise francophones who haven't been immersed in English-speaking environments for many years aren't perfect on that score. It's just the sort of thing one has to learn to recognize and read past when traipsing through international sites.Snedcatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-85589322275139033692013-09-10T18:54:57.955-06:002013-09-10T18:54:57.955-06:00Your elaboration of what a good advisor does is es...Your elaboration of what a good advisor does is especially well appreciated and dovetails with your last point. Nothing is more important at the start of a scientific career than seeking out the right mentor.Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-28144660742956577442013-09-10T13:20:32.970-06:002013-09-10T13:20:32.970-06:00By the way, that particular blog ‘Pascal Junod’ wa...By the way, that particular blog ‘Pascal Junod’ was poorly written and had a number of obvious grammatical mistakes and stylistic flaws to the point where it was starting to become painful to read. The student’s letter was actually higher quality writing and more compelling. Surely, an academic can do better?<br /><br />Dead weight exists in most departments, which is one reason why I eventually chose an industrial position (the other being the wish to earn every cent of my pay) but it is simply wrong on so many levels to conclude that most PhDs do little work. It may be that my field (biochemistry) is somehow different (I’ve heard it called the last hard science) than whatever field student was studying. In any case, my experience in the academy was the polar opposite of this person’s, so I thought I’d chime in. <br /><br />My supervisor taught me many of the basic lab techniques I needed, spent literally dozens of hours discussing science with me and ripped apart the first draft of my first manuscript with a red pen to the point where he might as well have rewritten in completely or used a paintbrush (but then I wouldn’t have learned how). In addition, to the time spent working his way up to that high level of knowledge and skill are the hundreds of hours he spent to; 1) Decide on the topic to research, 2) Set up the lab and determine what equipment he needed, 3) Apply for grants, 4) get the basic system set up so the students coming into his lab could start churning out results immediately…and so on. My experience as far as I could tell wasn’t exceptional. I say Karl Marx didn’t have a clue.<br /><br />My PhD supervisor did get his name on my papers as the last author. This is standard procedure when a student publishes but my name always came first as it should have.<br /><br />As far as dishonesty and sleaziness goes, I’ve encountered that with some people as well but not with most. For example, I remember once I published a paper which politely but logically trashed the results from a famous laboratory, getting an exceptionally good review and finding out later that the review had come from the very lab I had disagreed with. Talk about good sportsmanship from a famous scientist!<br /><br />One of the keys though is that in some fields (mine in particular), if what you do, doesn’t work it doesn’t work. One lady spent two years working on a gene that she thought she know what it did and then found out it was something completely different. Obviously, she couldn’t publish that, so had to scurry to research the ‘new’ function and ended up adding more than a year and a half to her thesis work.<br /><br />A final point I’d like to make is that the department and most especially the particular lab can make a world of difference for any prospective PhD student. <br />Steve Dnoreply@blogger.com