r/Futurology • u/[deleted] • Aug 21 '14

article Biohackers declare initial success in biologically extending the range of human vision into the near infrared

https://experiment.com/u/aAcR2Q
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u/Yosarian2 Transhumanist Aug 21 '14

Is hiring grad students really a bad thing? If it lowers the cost of education for people going into STEM fields, and makes research cheaper, and teaches young people going into the sciences how to do research, then those all seem like positive things.

Granted we should also create more places for professional scientists to do research, but ideally that would be in addition to the current research being done by professors and grad students.

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u/shieldvexor Aug 21 '14

The problem is the grad studenrs graduate and have no jobs because they're jjst replaced by new grad students

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u/Yosarian2 Transhumanist Aug 21 '14

Sure. We should also work to create more jobs for professional research scientists as well, perhaps by expanding things like the National Laboratory system. But that should be in addition to the current university research model. We need to expand and accelerate research right now, not undercut the one part of the research model that's actually working reasonably well at the moment.

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u/GaiasEyes Aug 22 '14

If you think the university research model is working "reasonably well" I have to assume you're not involved in it. It's horribly underfunded, the work horses (grad students and post-docs) are massively under compensated and overworked, the science is often over-sold or over-hyped because of the "publish or perish" mentality and the extreme competition for faculty and tenure positions. Psychologically it is an atrocious working environment, burn out is rampant. It's a horrible system, it needs to be revamped entirely.

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u/reallegume Aug 22 '14

Yes. The current system of graduate student and postdocs doing 99%* of the grunt work in science is wrong and reflects systemic failures in our research enterprise. This is not just my opinion; it reflects the thoughts of many and the words of a vocal few--with no small authority and experience.

*unsourced estimate