I've done both in my lifetime, Glenn. I've done academic research from grant proposals that I have written. I have my gaggle of publications that my team put out in an intense 4 years of research. And then I went into the corporate world.Glenn wrote:
The cash-cow is where you are Bill, a scientist in the corporate world.
Cash cow? Not really. Not when you consider that the real way to make money is through the time value of money. If it was making bucks that I was after, then I would have cut out with my EE engineering degree, made some bucks, invested early, and retired somewhere about now (assuming I got out of The Market at the right time). My Ph.D. was a long time coming with many years living hand-to-mouth. Then there were those post doc years for slave labor wages which helped pay off my trainingship grants. It was a very, very long time before I had positive net worth, what with all the loans I had to pay off.
Meanwhile, the line between pure corporate research and pure academic research is blurred. Did you know that they built the new Darden business school at UVa with 100% private funds? Many of the business professors there make lots of money on consulting. Their academic positions give them visibility and clout in a world happy to pay for their expertise.
I saw that in my medical research as well. While I went strictly for NIH and AHA grants, my mentor was funded by a private entity hoping to cash in on his work with red-blood-cell-sized albumin microbubbles (used in contrast imaging). Big Pharma grants can pay for a lot of studies as well.
Meanwhile, the NIH and NSF grants are few and far between. Getting them - and the tenure that comes with them - is a cut throat process. Any controversy that causes the government to want to throw more research money at a problem could help any post doc chart a course to a tenured academic position. And there is no job security like a tenured position. Meanwhile, the vast majority of academic wannabes don't make tenure - particularly in a field that isn't "hot" at the time. It's all about the grant money, Glenn. Bring in the bacon, and your academic institution will give you tenure. Otherwise, you never make it past slave labor wages.
Job security in the corporate world? Forgetaboutit! I've already experienced the shut-down of two different research units due to corporate takeovers. The money is good... when the money is good. When the shareholder doesn't need you, no more job. I'm just fortunate that my reputation kept me employed either by vendors or competitors.
I've seen it twice in my academic career, Glenn. It happens. In fact... My dissertation started as an attempt to advance the research of a Harvard scientist who published his work in Science. Instead, it became something very different. It took 2 years of taking data before I got the balls to call him on something he claimed in his publication - the stationarity of rhythms in cardio-respiratory signals. It turns out that rhythms that come and go is the rule, and stationarity is the exception to the rule. Sick people have regular rhythms (seizure activity in the brain, Cheyne-Stokes breathing, etc.). Healthy people adapt to their environment at the drop of a pin, so don't exhibit regular oscillations of their cardio-respiratory function. Thank God I believed in myself and my data. Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten my PhD. Meanwhile... nobody knows that Cohen's paper was wrong. Negative findings aren't "sexy." Mine happened to be sexy enough, because they validated a "chaos" understanding of the world.Glenn wrote:
evidence of misconduct, 'poor science', undue influence of conflicts of interest, etc, can be a career-killer in science, and scientists do a fairly effective job at policing other scientists.
- Sir Winston ChurcillA lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
More later, Glenn. BTW, your second post is spot on.
- Bill
Makes me wonder what those students really expected of a geography course, but if they were to elaborate I suspect that what they really don't like is that I don't just use maps as pretty pictures, but work on getting the students to use them as an analytical tool.
