5 ms·

You don't need a PhD to do research. All information is free now. It's fully possible for individuals to self teach in a working environment and be capable of p

You don't need a PhD to do research. All information is free now. It's fully possible for individuals to self teach in a working environment and be capable of performing effective research with 2-4 years of good experience after undergrad. To assume that the only way to accomplish this is via PhD is silly. This is especially the case when talking about computer science fields, where the barrier to entry is basically owning a cell phone.

throwawaymath 8y ago
Hypothetically speaking you're right. You can teach yourself everything you need to know even if that means sitting down and going through MIT OCW with all the textbooks in the syllabi. But practically speaking, in the real world we reside in, approximately no one authors peer reviewed research without at least being in graduate school. You frequently see "talks" at conferences given by non-PhDs, but it's exceptionally rare to find math or computer science research published in reputable journals or conferences by non-PhDs. The dirty secret is that the formal barrier to entry was never really the problem. It's extraordinarily difficult to learn how to conduct meaningful research. The structure of a PhD is imperfect, but it places you in direct collaboration with an experienced researcher who can mentor you. Half of the entire work of a PhD program is precisely learning how to learn on your own so you can find interesting research questions. I don't think it's productive to talk about what's merely possible. A more realistic barometer is what's plausible. Anyone who can bootstrap themselves up to original research in math or computer science through independent study is extremely gifted. You don't want to set a goal that requires you to be extremely gifted right from the start.
- TTPrograms 8y ago
  Effective research is not always published. There are volumes of private research in technical disciplines you will never hear about. There is not enough data available for you to declare confidently that the PhD is a strong requirement for real research. Furthermore, especially in the field of computer science, you should really run the numbers on how many of ex. the 10 authors on each of the 100 Google papers put out each year had a PhD. Additionally, nothing has been done to separate the issue of correlation and causation. If research capable individuals pursue a PhD because it interests them, who's to say that their research capability came from the PhD versus it being intrinsic. One can learn a lot from a PhD. But saying that it's a practical requirement for research in this modern era of information access is without definitive evidence.
newen 8y ago
Not everyone is a certified genius like Grigori Perelman who can do great research while living in a vacuum. You need great advisors who will guide you, and fellow grad students who you can ask for help and bounce ideas off. The academic enviroment is invaluable for someone doing their PhD, and it's pretty much impossible for someone with somewhat above average intelligence (and let's face it, most PhD's are not geniuses) to do good research with just a computer. The "all information is free and you can study anything using just a computer" is a stupid meme that doesn't work for the vast majority of people.
- TTPrograms 8y ago
  My statement is not that people can't benefit from a PhD, but that it is not a strict requirement. You are presenting a strawman.
  - newen 8y ago
    What is that strawman exactly? You are saying that anyone can do PhD level research with just a laptop and the internet. I am saying that that is extremely difficult and impossible for the vast majority of people.
    - coolwhhip 8y ago
      Maybe I’m misreading, but the strawman seems to be that research can be done in a vacuum without collaborating. The parent commenter seems to be suggesting that a PhD isn’t a requirement to work successfully on interesting research problems. It’s possible to go online and read the same papers everyone’s reading. You can still talk to people to get guidance and find out known things that are not published.
      - newen 8y ago
        Ya I guess it was something of a strawman. But it's pretty close to the truth since it's very hard to get good guidance outside academia or places like google with lots of phds around.
krnsll 8y ago
I disagree as someone in Mathematics. Sure you can learn a lot from just the literature but in my experience there is a set of heuristics and common understandings/techniques that are often passed on through instructors or peers you're collaborating with that are absent in textbooks. More importantly, points of emphasis and exigent problems in an era of information deluge often come through only when in regular contact with practitioners and attendance of conferences. These are thoughts that have crystallized for me over a 4 year period of starting math late in undergrad, struggling through and putting a lot of time into non essential aspects in the process of self study to get up to speed, hitting a road block when attempting to self study graduate level material but ultimately managing upon working in an academic setting.
madmax96 8y ago
>It's fully possible for individuals to self teach in a working environment and be capable of performing effective research with 2-4 years of good experience after undergrad. It's technically possible, but it's unrealistic. The work that is published in journals often demonstrates results that are known by the community years before the actual publication. There's effectively a "secret club" in many disciplines that you need to have connections to in order to actually understand the current state-of-the-art. Without those connections, it's hard to understand what is high-impact and meaningful. This means the research you would do is likely to be insignificant, or already done and pending publication. An easy way to avoid this is to start attending conferences and working with establishment players, which is exactly what doing a PhD entails.

throwawaymath 8y ago

Hypothetically speaking you're right. You can teach yourself everything you need to know even if that means sitting down and going through MIT OCW with all the textbooks in the syllabi. But practically speaking, in the real world we reside in, approximately no one authors peer reviewed research without at least being in graduate school. You frequently see "talks" at conferences given by non-PhDs, but it's exceptionally rare to find math or computer science research published in reputable journals or conferences by non-PhDs. The dirty secret is that the formal barrier to entry was never really the problem. It's extraordinarily difficult to learn how to conduct meaningful research. The structure of a PhD is imperfect, but it places you in direct collaboration with an experienced researcher who can mentor you. Half of the entire work of a PhD program is precisely learning how to learn on your own so you can find interesting research questions. I don't think it's productive to talk about what's merely possible. A more realistic barometer is what's plausible. Anyone who can bootstrap themselves up to original research in math or computer science through independent study is extremely gifted. You don't want to set a goal that requires you to be extremely gifted right from the start.

TTPrograms 8y ago
Effective research is not always published. There are volumes of private research in technical disciplines you will never hear about. There is not enough data available for you to declare confidently that the PhD is a strong requirement for real research. Furthermore, especially in the field of computer science, you should really run the numbers on how many of ex. the 10 authors on each of the 100 Google papers put out each year had a PhD. Additionally, nothing has been done to separate the issue of correlation and causation. If research capable individuals pursue a PhD because it interests them, who's to say that their research capability came from the PhD versus it being intrinsic. One can learn a lot from a PhD. But saying that it's a practical requirement for research in this modern era of information access is without definitive evidence.

newen 8y ago

Not everyone is a certified genius like Grigori Perelman who can do great research while living in a vacuum. You need great advisors who will guide you, and fellow grad students who you can ask for help and bounce ideas off. The academic enviroment is invaluable for someone doing their PhD, and it's pretty much impossible for someone with somewhat above average intelligence (and let's face it, most PhD's are not geniuses) to do good research with just a computer. The "all information is free and you can study anything using just a computer" is a stupid meme that doesn't work for the vast majority of people.

TTPrograms 8y ago
My statement is not that people can't benefit from a PhD, but that it is not a strict requirement. You are presenting a strawman.
- newen 8y ago
  What is that strawman exactly? You are saying that anyone can do PhD level research with just a laptop and the internet. I am saying that that is extremely difficult and impossible for the vast majority of people.
  - coolwhhip 8y ago
    Maybe I’m misreading, but the strawman seems to be that research can be done in a vacuum without collaborating. The parent commenter seems to be suggesting that a PhD isn’t a requirement to work successfully on interesting research problems. It’s possible to go online and read the same papers everyone’s reading. You can still talk to people to get guidance and find out known things that are not published.
    - newen 8y ago
      Ya I guess it was something of a strawman. But it's pretty close to the truth since it's very hard to get good guidance outside academia or places like google with lots of phds around.

krnsll 8y ago

I disagree as someone in Mathematics. Sure you can learn a lot from just the literature but in my experience there is a set of heuristics and common understandings/techniques that are often passed on through instructors or peers you're collaborating with that are absent in textbooks. More importantly, points of emphasis and exigent problems in an era of information deluge often come through only when in regular contact with practitioners and attendance of conferences. These are thoughts that have crystallized for me over a 4 year period of starting math late in undergrad, struggling through and putting a lot of time into non essential aspects in the process of self study to get up to speed, hitting a road block when attempting to self study graduate level material but ultimately managing upon working in an academic setting.

madmax96 8y ago

>It's fully possible for individuals to self teach in a working environment and be capable of performing effective research with 2-4 years of good experience after undergrad. It's technically possible, but it's unrealistic. The work that is published in journals often demonstrates results that are known by the community years before the actual publication. There's effectively a "secret club" in many disciplines that you need to have connections to in order to actually understand the current state-of-the-art. Without those connections, it's hard to understand what is high-impact and meaningful. This means the research you would do is likely to be insignificant, or already done and pending publication. An easy way to avoid this is to start attending conferences and working with establishment players, which is exactly what doing a PhD entails.