Tournaments and jousting in research: ten years on

Obtain Your Registered USA Or German Driver's License, Passport, Identity Card(benjack20008@gmail.com)

Hello,
We produce Guaranteed real-time database of registered passport, citizenship, identity card, driver's license, diploma, degrees, certificates, SSN all formalities available. Tourist and business travel for all 50 countries, all nationalities and countries worldwide. Where to buy fake ID card, Real Real database, registered passport, driver's license, ID, birth certificate, visa, SSN

E-MAIL: benjack20008@gmail.com


E-MAIL: benjack20008@gmail.com


WHATAPP::::+237685398594
You can buy

Canada maps
United States maps
student tickets
International maps
Private cards
acceptance report
Baptism certificates
birth certificates
death certificates
divorce certificates
marriage certificates
Passe,
driver's license,
ID card,
Social security cards,
Birth certificate,
Express work permit
IELTS certificate, TOIC ETC
Express Canadian Citizenship documents,
certified ID cards,
Registered passport
Canada map,
Maps of the United States,
Student tickets,
International Cards,
Private cards,
Acceptance certificates,
Taufzertifikate,
Death certificates,
Divorce certificates,
Marriage certificates,
Custom certificates
Secondary school,
G. E. D. Diploma,
House education diplomas
No ten,
Academic degree,
Merchantability certificates
Social insurance,
Validate SSN number,
driver's license,
spy products
Voice Changer,
hearing aids,
Invisible ink,
DMV-Dep,
Check,
investigate
Visa problems
Clean subways
Merchantability certificates
social insurance
Check the SSN number
divorce papers
academic degree
forgery
US Green Card
SSD chemical solution and activation powder for the cleaning of coated black money

EUR - Euro
GBP - British Pound
INR - Indian Rupee
CHF - Swiss Franc
USD - US dollars
PLN - Polish Zloty
SEK - Swedish Krona
NOK - Norw. Crown
DKK - Danish Krone
CZK - Czech crown
HUF - Hungarian Forint
RON - Romanian lei
SCT - Scottish Pound

And many more.

We guarantee you a new identity package (documents). All our documents are registered in the government database.
We produce documents mainly in two formats, in registered and unregistered formats. Look at the clock image on the other side of the service. We give quality counterfeit passport black framed employer passport, buy British passport, fake ID.

for more informations

E-MAIL: benjack20008@gmail.com

WHATAPP::::+237685398594

The conclusion appears to be that nothing has changed, and universities continue to demand more and reward a tournament model that contributes mightily to the structural problem in the profession.

 

Years ago a editorial in Science bemoaned the fact that few university professors actually PROFESS. The university reward system means that the U values research $$$$ and glossy publications above all. The editorial suggested that such investigators be denied the title Professor and instead be designated as Distinguished Researchers, and leave Professor to those who actually consider training of students at various levels a part of their calling. But in a society where profit trumps all, it's hardly surprising the the academic structure is its reflection.


 
Although I must say that calling it a "death cage" appears to be somewhat hyperbolical.

I like your viewpoint Laura to just create an ideal scene to focus on.
My ideal scene if somehow I could be persuaded to go back to the "death cage" that is academic science would be a place just like my grad lab: 6 people at our most productive (2 technicians, 2 students, 1 postdoc and 1 PI). My advisor had time for 2 hr lab meetings each week and 1hr each week with us to review our data. And you had better bring him the data:)
We all generated one paper per year (including the techs who were my PI's hands). We had only one R01 grant and had to wash our own toothpicks (we were a yeast lab) to get by.We ALL had a lot of fun working hard to be productive. We didn't change the world, just our little corner of it, but we felt good about it:)

Hi Susan,
It looks to me like we're all focusing on the ways any change might impact the status quo: getting research done requires students and postdocs, the funding agencies want results, etc. What about thinking about a more idea situation without filtering it through today's constraits first, and later on seeing if there is any way to get there from here?
Personally, I really like the idea that people do their work and publish it and it is simply valued. Honestly, I prefer that to any schema where collaboration before the fact "assigns" me to find out and test certain things. That sounds constrained, assigned, and unlikely to produce a serendipitous wonder or two. Rita Levi-Montalcini would not have discovered nerve growth factor in such a schema. Carlton Gajdushek would not have found slow viruses either.
So I admit the filter here is this: there seem to be more scientists than the field can accomodate happily into such a model. This idea is more or less how biology functioned back in the 60's when I went into it. That's the filter, and I admit getting past it is a real challenge.
cheers,
Laura

I like your ideas Phoebe. I agree that rewarding quality is necessary to have permanent change. There should also be some reward for demonstrating that a certain hypothesis is not valid. We have a not so funny joke in industry that at least 50% of what is published is not reproducible. Certainly I have found in the competitive field that I work in that if it's in a glossy journal, the percentage is closer to 75%. It's not deliberate fraud...just sloppiness and the pressure to deliver results for the next grant submission. And its a huge waste of grant funds. One of my collaborators who is a new PI at an academic institution now calls me to check on whether we have attempted to reproduce anything in the field before he writes his next R01. It saves him time and money to know what is real and what is not. The big issue to change any of this is to change the financial aspects of funding.Tying funding to some rubric of quality is not trivial. With universities relying more and more on the F&O they receive from funding agencies to power their growth, this is something that they would resist strongly. How do you propose to cut them off from the drug that is NIH F&O?

Both hmcbride2000 and Phoebe Leboy point out possible changes.

 

The current structure of "up and out" wastes talent, especially of gifted scientists who do not want to become administrative multi-taskers. NOt everyone wants to teach/write grants/administrate but there are few "permanent superpostdoc" positions that give them an opportunity to meaningfully contribute AND have a real career with reasonable salary. To me that's a real waste. So we should have a research-track that means something.

 

Part of this also depends on the very skewed reward structure as Phoebe notes. Publishing in the glossy journals is a game that too often rewards people with certain pedigrees, rather than truly important work.

 

One possible change is to limit tenure decisions etc to a limited number of papers. NIH is starting to do that for grants, wehre you can no longer list 75 citations but must choose a limited number. This pushes for meaty papers rather than trendy Least Publishable Units.
 

Another change that is happening is limiting grants beyond a certain $$$ maximum. THis discourages large labs. While the soft money people complain about this vigorously, since they need to recover more salary $ from their grants, that may also represent that the soft money research institutes are no longer economically sustainable.

 

To your point Susan that it is not fair to ask people to leave after 6-8 years, I would respond that now we ask them to leave after 12-18 years, so how exactly is that fair? I would also counter that there should be some support for people who are honestly curious about studying an area in depth that interests them who have little desire to continue as an R01 PI. I know that is the "gold standard" career path, but it is certainly not desired by everyone. I also disagree that you can't select the best after graduate school. That is what is done now in terms of funding for training grants and fellowships, and that ranking perpetuates the cycle of competition that you have detailed already. So what is so wrong with transparency? Either we make it more clear to people that it is a game and where they rank early and often, or we fundamentally change the game as Phoebe details.

I agree with Susan that attempting to decrease the pool of PhDs is not the solution; PIs will simply import more postdocs from abroad who will wish to enter the tournament.
My view is that we need to alter the system from being a tournament where we rack up the most points (papers, grant dollars,lab team members) to one in which we are valued for a few really good ideas/discoveries/inventions. In short - moving from valuing quantity to valuing quality. What about the idea that each scientist should have a lifetime limit of 25 papers?
We also need to shift more to open publishing, so that success is not measured by your ability to get published in the top journals - what Susan calls "The Glossy Journals".

@SmallScienceWoman, not sure why you would think I'm "big science". *I* certainly don't think of my career that way. I'm not really a winner in the tournament.

 


I do have a life, which is mostly thanks to (1) getting tenure, and (2) allowing myself to admit that I am not going to be publishing regularly in The Glossy Journals. I did not have a life prior to tenure, really, and that's a problem.
 

Because as long as we do have a tournament system, and are competing for 1st place for those who are willing to give up a life to win, we will see Good People step aside from the top levels. Women are the most visible to depart, though lots of men do too.
 

Again, profoundly wasteful of talent. Do we really get more done by working 90 hour weeks? And is it necessary to do so much?
 

Sadly, the academy asks more and more of us and ratchets up the expectations. Multiple papers in the glossy journals, multiple grants, on top of significant administrative and teaching burdens. Unless and until all those reward structures are modified, the tournament will continue.

@hmcbride: I find the idea of throwing out people after grad school as "uncompetitive" to be not acceptable. I think we can't ask people to spend 6-8 years on a PhD and then say "so sad too bad". Also, since that just continues the "tournament" (which is loaded and unfair), it's incredibly wasteful of real talent. I am not convinced "the best" can be accurately determined at that point.

It's interesting that most of the comments focus on collaboration. But I don't think that collaboration is the only alternative to the tournament model. Surely there's a middle ground where we can do our own thing but not be penalized for not being absolutely first.



The "first cross the line" mentality of the tournament model is surely contributing to sloppy research and potential for inaccuracies.

Hmmmm. Still the same tournament model.
To change things is not easy as it is a complicated system driven by university funding. Getting the universities to change their incentives will not be simple. So...1) you could gut the system and decrease enrollment at second tier grad schools and eliminate a third tier to reduce supply and link success of students in some type of career to continued funding. 2) force collaboration by giving more funds to productive collaborations between small (maximum 10 people) labs. 3) And my personal favorite, switch to how they work in Physics. Only the top 10% advance to the postdoc; and only those individuals move on to faculty positions (if they want them). That option continues the tournament, but at least you cut your losses after giving up 6-8 years in grad school. And by year 5 you should know if you haven't achieved enough that you should be thinking about other career options. This will help decrease grad school enrollment over time and balance supply and demand with the added benefit that with fewer grad students and postdocs to do the work mentoring will be become more important again...

I have the impression that there are subdivisions with individual tournaments, and also that some tournaments are rigged while others are more fairly run. I guess the real winners are the Nobel laureates, but you need to become venerable like the Bede before you can receive this level of recognition, and of course XY helps. I'd say that the competition itself is fun for some people (a lot of males and some females) and so they perpetuate this model. But if enough people said it's a waste of money not to collaborate, especially today with the constraints we have on finances, maybe a paradigm shift could be accomplished. Even collaboration needs work to keep it in balance so you can have a life outside of work, though. Ask Nancy Wexler (mentioned in another comment).

There's a lot of tournament model use in the society at large, but I've always thought it was a bad idea for science. That's probably why I'm in small science rather than big science. But Susan, you are in big science. There should be room for you to have a life as well. What is wrong with the idea that work is only part of one's life? Is that only attractive to women?

Personally, I prefer a model where people collaborate. I like the Nancy Wexler-led effort to clone Cystic Fibrosis gene, for example. I thought I had posted this, but it disappeared. I don't know what's happening here??