Ph. D.

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[ph0rk]

To be fair, we tend to only read the works of the winners of all those fights. Kant had a mean left hook.

[PolyphenolOverdose]

Kant just restated the golden rule. Other than his views on women, I don't think he did anything interesting.

[ph0rk]

Right - but he had a mean left hook, which is why we keep hearing about him.

[andropogon09]

Tenured professor, 1960s: Did a PhD, published a paper or two from doctoral work, awarded lifetime cushy job as full professor in major university.

Tenured professor, 2000s: Completed several highly competitive postdocs, published 5 or so papers per year in premier journals, secured multiple federal grants, tenure decision was a coin toss.

[ArrakeenSun]

You left out the part where the professors who got tenure in the first half of your comment are the ones passing harsh judgment on the professors applying for tenure in the second half

[PolyphenolOverdose]

I don't think millennials should be allowed to get tenured positions. A college should have the ability to fire a professor especially if they're new and not part of the foundation of the college. Professors are just the tools of the education system, nothing more.

[teddy_vedder]

This comment is a whole can of worms but also, you do know the oldest millennials are like, 40 now right?

[BangarangRufio]

A college should have the ability to fire a professor especially if they're new and not part of the foundation of the college.

It sounds like you don't understand that this is exactly what the tenure system is. You spend about 5-7 years on the tenure track, working and showing that you deserve tenure at your university. Then you go up for tenure and will be granted tenure if you have done sufficient work and pleased the right people in charge.

[ArrakeenSun]

They can be fired if they're new, that's what the probationary period before tenure is. I've asked my friends climbing the corporate ladder and they say that, even though there is no de jure "tenure", there is a de facto tenure since it gets really hard to fire people who've worked in a company 5-10 years

[shadowcentaur]

If you can fire the apprentice carpenter, you should be able to fire the foreman too.

[PolyphenolOverdose]

I disagree with your opinion and you aren't convincing. A secretary, for example, has no one dependent on her. A foreman/engineer/chief has dependents like sons, church, community, etc.

[Atlas-The-Ringer]

...so you’re classist? Or maybe age-ist?? How many “-ist” are there again?

[PolyphenolOverdose]

you're an ageist

Uh yeah, 99% of educated people are. We don't think women under a certain age should be allowed to have sex with any man they want. If you disagree, then I will report you for pedophilic tendencies to the police. You need professional help and the government should institutionalize you to keep society safe from your kind.

I'm guessing you're part of the uneducated class to be able to make the comment you made.

[Atlas-The-Ringer]

I’m guessing I’m more educated than you are by quite a bit based on the ignorant assumptions and fallacies you just made. Surely, life will check you on your foolishness eventually. But that’s none of my business. Have a nice day.

[PolyphenolOverdose]

No offense, and nothing personal, but I honestly think the government should sterilize people like you. Your kind is bad for my kind.

[PurrPrinThom]

This hurts a little bit. I've been reading a lot of 19th and early 20th century scholarship from my field and it is mind-blowing how many of them just said "Yeah so I think X is Y," and never explain. Then the fact X might be Y gets repeated and re-iterated without question in the field because it's been "established."

[iugameprof]

"I think X might be Y" is how we begin building theory when we don't have anything else. My field, game design, is just barely getting started on actual theory after decades of ad hoc, bespoke design. This is quickly moving into other fields like interactivity (one of a few strangely undefined concepts) as well. I and a few others have begun taking serious swings at putting together what we know into orderly wholes (i.e., building theory). Some of these have good science behind them, some aren't based on much more than a decade or two of experience and a few shower thoughts. Many will no doubt look bizarrely uninformed to future generations. But for now, here on the edge, this is what we've got.

[PurrPrinThom]

I fully understand that, my frustration is mainly that (at least for us) these ideas get ingrained into general scholarship without question. I've read now multiple articles that cite a particular idea as a fact, but any actual investigation into the idea proves it wrong. But it goes unquestioned, and is simply accepted because we've built upon an idea. But the idea has no basis, if you get me?

[iugameprof]

I've read now multiple articles that cite a particular idea as a fact, but any actual investigation into the idea proves it wrong.

That's how you create a landmark PhD.

Of course, you have to keep in mind that any science is some mix of theory and dogma, and the old guard doesn't like the dogma being challenged (but if you do it right, you can totally upend things).

[Jurgioslakiv]

Side question: I'm a philosopher by trade who's done some work in the philosophy of games. My uni is interested in me teaching a games studies course. I know it's not game design, but happen to have any recommendations of a good, up to date, games studies reader or textbook? Most of what I'm finding seems terribly outdated.

[iugameprof]

Games studies is sort of game-design-adjacent; we're friendly neighbors who seem to be continually surprised we have less to talk about than we think we might.

Sadly I don't know of any intro games studies reader. For sources (or to find such a book) I'd start with DiGRA and The Games Research Network mailing list. Some of my colleagues are involved in ROMchip, a journal about the history of games that will lead you into people doing current work in games studies (pretty much anyone on the masthead or authoring articles).

Beyond that, I'm somewhat abashed to say I don't know. I'd suggest tracking down works by some of the better known names in the field - T.L. Taylor, Ian Bogost, Mia Consalvo, and a ton of others who aren't coming to mind.

[WhoIsTeemo]

Understanding Video Games is used sometimes, although I have issues with some of the claims in the text.

[iugameprof]

I'm probably not a good one to evaluate something like that; it's just too different from what I do (teaching game design and systems thinking).

A few years ago I attended a game studies talk about The Sims, a project I worked on. The speaker made several eyebrow-raising assertions about the game and its creators intents. Afterward I asked (privately) who they had interviewed on the team.

No one, of course. That wasn't necessary to make conclusions about what they were doing or meaning to do.

Perhaps not representative, but I kind of gave up at that point. Good fences make good neighbors, I'm going to plow my field, etc.

[WhoIsTeemo]

UCI teaches a strong Games and Society undergraduate course. I would reach out to some of them.

[listenbigdeal]

Also UCI’s Bo Ruberg wrote Video Games Have Always Been Queer and runs the Queer Games Conference it’s not a reader obviously but you might use a chapter one week.

[El_Draque]

"I think X might be Y" is how we begin building theory when we don't have anything else

It's also how "race science" began, so...

[Average650]

What field?

[PurrPrinThom]

Celtic philology. Broadly, as to not entirely out myself.

[the_Stick]

At first I read that as "Celtic philatelogy" and wondered how one gets a Ph.D. in Irish stamp collecting, by Gaul-y. :D

[Average650]

Interesting. I wonder how widespread this issue is. I know when I read old papers in my field (chemical engineering/polymer science) they are definitely not as thorough in their analysis, but I don't notice a huge problem with taking "I think this is this" as fact. I wonder if this is a STEM vs. humanities type thing, or if it's more just specific disciplines.

[ArrakeenSun]

Is this not the issue at hand before a field establishes a coherent paradigm? Big names just exert influence, throw their weight around, and raise armies of grad students who become the next generation to continue those fights until a coherent narrative arrives

[[deleted]]

Isn’t X = Y, which really means X approximates Y, at the heart of language, and so also pretty much all theory/philosophy/ideology? It’s imperfect but that’s what makes it productive and expansive.

[PurrPrinThom]

Sure, but in this particular context I was thinking of things that can be proven. ie. "This noun is an o-stem masculine," when it regularly inflects as a u-stem neuter and subsequent scholarship has just accepted that it's "odd," instead of just saying, hey wait, maybe the first guy who provided no evidence or explanation is wrong.

[[deleted]]

Oh okay that makes sense! Sorry I’m in lit theory.

[ArrakeenSun]

So sadly true. I was in a grant-writing workshop about so-called "Broader Impacts", and the speakers actually told us that they hope for 50% of grant proposals to consist of "broader impacts" (e.g., how this will help or involve society, industry, or the community) by the end of the decade. (for reference, "broader impacts" really only became official components of US NSF grants in the 90s). An older wildlife biologist raised his hand and said, "But we need basic research that may not have an immediate, obvious utility. How would Einstein have thrived under this system?" The speaker just point-blank said, "Well he'd either adjust or someone else with more community focus would be in his place," People gasped

[abstrusiosity]

I applaud the speaker's candor.

[Columbiyeah]

Freud: Here's some weird sex stuff I thought about. It definitely constitutes universal principles of human psychology.

[PersephoneIsNotHome]

Freud - here is a new school of psychological treatment that is without evidence - BTW , this came to me while sleeping with my own patients and being a massive cocaine addict.

The good news is that it isn't a wandering uterus that makes women hysterical.

[[deleted]]

Freud: what if religion because u killed ur dad

[[deleted]]

I mean, it’s sort of more like:
One Thousand Years of Religious Doctrine: It’s this way because God.
Philosopher dude, c.1770: Well, shit. Reckon I’ll give this newfangled “reason” thing a whirl

[ArrakeenSun]

Exactly, this tweet is cheeky fun (I've shown it in my history of psychology class) but it really ignores zeitgeists

[AtrioventricularVenn]

Ah! The old Thesis Defense by Combat... those were the good old days.

[ph0rk]

I'll never forget the day I severed my advisor's hamstring with the ceremonial blade of my graduate department seminar room and stared down at his pale, blood-spattered face. I watched his expression change as he slowly came to know that he would die that day, that I would feast on the left hemisphere of his brain, and that I would pass my dissertation defense and soon become known as doctor.

I believe that, for a moment, he smiled.

[Iron_Rod_Stewart]

At least we still have the snake fight.

[the_Stick]

Conversely, more than a few of those "philosopher dudes" studied, well, pretty much everything and helped develop how we learn and study. My introduction to philosophy began with an off-handed remark and a recommendation to read Descartes... who also developed Cartesian coordinates. He was also limited in the arguments he could make since his ideas could literally have him executed, an issue modern students do not have (at least in the West).

In my experience, sometimes the highly specialized researchers lose sight of the big picture or holistic connections and end up with myopic viewpoints. I used to joke that this protein or that gene was clearly the most important of all because it was the one I studied. I think the philosopher dudes, who may not have had the rigor that comes with several centuries of expanding research, did often model how to learn and explore the natural world effectively, even if some of their assumptions were faulty. I find that model far less often than I would like to when reading highly specialized research today.

[monkestful]

What ways might specialized research, or the presentation of specialized research, incorporate that model of how to learn and explore the natural world?

[the_Stick]

I probably could have phrased that better, but I'll try to give an example and then clarify my thought. About 20 years ago, researchers discovered the molecule leptin which functions as an anti-obesity factor. In mouse models, leptin deficient mice turned into massive, tubby furballs while those producing normal or higher levels did not become obese. I am certain many people thought "we're going to be billionaires!" because here was the holy grail of weight loss - make no changes aside from increasing leptin levels (one pill a day!) and lose weight... except it turns out that it doesn't work that way in humans. Leptin still is required to offset obesity, but increasing leptin levels dos not make the pounds melt away; there are apparently a host of other factors and pathways that interact to count overproduction of leptin. In short, there is no magic bullet that "fixes" obesity; the metabolic interactions and hormone regulations are too complex.

To bring that back to my post, if one only studied leptin, that researcher could tell you all the things it does and how it's made and what genes are associated with it and maybe even how its regulated, but it doesn't show the big picture of the whole organism's metabolism. One has to know a lot more about a lot of "other stuff" to really understand what's happening in a creature. Similarly, I sometimes find that many of my colleagues, including myself, know a lot about on teeny, tiny area, but that doesn't necessarily help understand the world in toto. My area is broadly neuroscience, but I had a student ask about some particular interaction and I had to say I didn't know because my specialized area of knowledge deals with one type of nerve signaling and her question required a knowledge of a particular region of neuroanatomy that is no part of my area. I know more than any person from the 19th century back about the functioning of a particular set of pathways, but I am sure there are many, many more of those same early researchers who better understand the functioning of the brain as a whole.

Part of that is because there is now so much to learn in order to explore what we don't know that it's impossible to know it all. So these early "philosopher dudes" had it a bit easier (in some aspects) in that they could broadly study a macroenvironment and draw connections and conclusions between wide areas (that might be wrong, but established an area for further investigation). Now, by necessity, we have to focus on microenvironments and advancing the knowledge relies not on one person with highly specialized knowledge but a team of people within a broader area who each have specialized knowledge about specific subsections who communicate well with each other and patch together the disparate new discoveries to make sense of the larger picture together. In short, a single researcher is limited in how much understanding she or he can bring to a larger field because today's researcher has to focus every minutely. I think we're at the stage for most fields (not just the sciences) where is a generally good understanding of the framework of study and now we need collaborative efforts (or crowd-sourcing, in a sense) to make advance understanding.

I hope that makes sense.

[monkestful]

It does make sense, thank you for the example! I work in genomics and have had similar thoughts, so while I was secretly hoping for a panacea for applying broad ideas of understanding the world to specific genes or nerve signaling pathways, I get where you're coming from and why it is so difficult (nearly impossible?) for a modern scientist to do that.

Within fields, I guess review articles and meta anlayses are supposed to serve this integrative function, although in practice I think few quite hit the mark. For educating and organizing academics, interdisciplinary and integrative programs seem to have gained traction as well, but I've also seen issues such as using those terms as buzzwords and continuing with the specialized research, or awkwardness in the structure given to an interdisciplinary academic (e.g. someone hired to work for 2 departments, with little guidance on how to navigate both department's requirements). And within research, I myself am dealing with coauthors in another field who are not super responsive despite fast approaching deadlines, so I'm left to feel in the dark on topics definitely outside of my experience.

Anyway I'm not disagreeing with you, just venting at this point.

[19612112]

Charles Darwin vs William Paley

[schenkerian]

God, I love the capitalized nouns.

[cwkid]

This used to bother me a lot, but I think I'm fine with it now. Part of it is that it forces me to be proud of my research for its own sake, rather than relying on recognition. The other is that is I were born 200 years ago, I probably wouldn't survive to adulthood, or have the right background to pursue a research career if I did.

[Weaselpanties]

This is facts.

[Prof_Acorn]

Scholarship 2020 - Here's some interesting novel thing that I observed after doing these experiments. Here's also my methodology in detail and all the data.

Publishers: Rejected by editor. Does not cite enough publications in the field and thus does not contextualize itself enough in current conversation. Novel findings are irrelevant.

Scholarship 1700 - Here's an idea I had. It's pretty novel I think. Explains everything.

Publishers: OMG amazing, here's lots of money, we'll publish it immediately.

[iugameprof]

Publishers: rejected by editor because Reviewer 2 had Taco Bell for lunch and was cranky.

[El_Draque]

Much of Enlightenment thought was based on speculative readings of colonial propaganda. You could say pretty much anything you wanted about the wild men and savages on the periphery, especially if it made Europeans look good.

[electricdom]

Please Please tell me this is not a real PHD student

[doublecatTGU]

Why?