Academia is known for pushing people into projects that are highly likely to get positive results (see Why are Modern Scientists so Dull? or the last quarter of The Trouble with Physics for more on the subject). The first paper was discussed here a couple years ago. This is because the university requires that you 1. publish papers and 2. get grants. Number 2 is highly dependent on getting a lot of #1, and you don't get there by dreaming up alternative, risky ideas.
Hmmmm.... interesting.
I'm not sure that it's academic institutions doing it so much as the system as a whole, at least in the physical sciences. I agree wholeheartedly with that in the SOCIAL sciences, though.
I'd argue that last point, (it depends on how 'safe' one feels like playing it), and the reality is that points one and two are, in most scientific fields anyway, interrelated to the point of being a two equation, three unknown situation.
One must figure out what is "viable" research...
but within that, you have tremendous autonomy to direct your own research field. MUCH more than in most industrial positions as a scientist (speaking here of those with PhD's, not BS or MS degrees).
I've known quite a few scientists that adopted side projects on a shoestring which were
completely unrelated to the main work of their laboratory and rather speculative, if one got right down to it.
I enjoyed running a program at a masters institution because I could look for the 'gaps' in big-program, big-money research. I could do things that would result in a paper every couple of years and weren't expensive to conduct, but because they DIDN'T require two post-docs and a stable of grad students, nobody at Big Wheel University was picking up those ideas and running with them.
I loved that. It wasn't purely science, of course-- because it required considering where the field was headed, and looking for those little cul-de-sacs that were being overlooked by the main current of the research. That in and of itself was a worthy challenge. Lots of boundary conditions... like a great puzzle. Like being an early, shrew-like mammal in a forest of enormous T-Rex dinos.
There is
plenty of science happening in the cracks and on the fringes. Much of it is really interesting, and the people doing it are pretty passionately interested in it. The other thing to recall is that MOST people who win Nobel Prizes get them for
work that they do in their 20's. That is, these are YOUNG people, at the top of their game intellectually-- right out of graduate training, most of them, and nothing breeds innovation and insight like
being trained by someone GREAT at it themselves-- Nobel winners are likely to mentor great scientists, too. I find that particular statistic fascinating, even if the mechanisms underlying the data aren't clear.
While scientists are
trained (of necessity) to basically have the same overall background in a field, perhaps it is building a foundation of shared context in which to discuss problems and hypotheses rather than an attempt to prosyletize a particular framework. In the physical sciences, anyway, there is very seldom anything that "just is" a particular way. It just doesn't work that way. Theory doesn't drive things the same way that it can in the social sciences-- for something to become established practice, there has to be a direct link from theoretical to experimental. In some respects, this is no different than the argument that an artist must be trained to FOLLOW the rules in order to BREAK them later. I think it's exactly the same principle at work, and I also think it's probably at least mostly valid as a consideration-- if it weren't, then Nobel prize winners might come mostly from informal training in the sciences, or from those persons who were furthest from that graduate training process-- and they don't.
It's one of the challenges of interdisciplinary work, in fact, to try to discuss things at the appropriate level without that shared vocabulary and context working as a sort of shorthand.
You know-- Wightman '88. Ohhhh... you don't know Wightman's 1988 paper? The one in-- Well, then, let me find you a copy... That brings up another point, though-- interdisciplinary science is
definitely where the action is. Biology and physics? <Yawn.> Biophysics, on the other hand.... is exciting and fresh.
Those interdisciplinary fields work best when people are trained fairly conventionally in one or more of the contributing fields-- like me, I suppose. I got a degree in a hard physical science, but also did training in biochemistry, psychology, physiology, and pharmacology in order to be able to be effective working as a neuroscientist. Then I didn't work as a research neuroscientist at all once I landed a faculty position-- I went back to my roots and did environmental and forensic chemistry research. I do agree that in those interdisclinary areas (like neuroscience was fifteen years ago), one sees more innovative ideas surfacing. Once specialized training IN the discipline becomes the norm, some of the 'edge' is lost, but I'm hesitant to assign causation there. It's a correlation, but it could be due to sheer novelty wearing off. Nothing stays "hot" forever.
What fuels paradigms? Well, in my opinion, the right researcher/group publishes a paper that is prominent enough, and there's a sense of instant complete credibility in a way that a paper from a less-known author doesn't get. Neither instance SHOULD be taken that way, but the pace of science would be even slower than it is if everything were vetted that carefully post-publication.
There is recognition of value in 'outsider' perspective in problem-solving. Physicists are often an extremely welcome addition to a materials chemistry research group, for example. Chemists are valued by molecular pharmacology researchers. They have a different perspective which gives the entire group a real edge creatively because they think like (whatever their training is).
I don't think that scientists are married to particular beliefs much (that's actually rather rare in my experience-- most of them find new information, even revolutionary thinking, energizing, even if it is a bit frightening if one's work depends on the older paradigm).
Departments that urge a "communal" equipment approach between faculty and research groups seem to do better in terms of innovation than those that encourage territoriality.
In my own estimation, the largest problem in science (academic or otherwise) is in grant review and publication that favors the established big dogs in any area, and has a vested interest in keeping 'upstarts' away by denying them publications and funding. The review process is
messed up. <sigh>
Academia
was my natural environment. It was challenging on many levels because of the complexity of the total environment.
The trouble with an advanced degree is that unless you stay current, you lose that level pretty fast. I probably can't even do any calculus at this point, much less the more advanced mathematics that I did routinely in modeling work.
I often wonder what I'll do once DD actually goes off to college. Will I re-launch into industry and hope to use a MS-level position as a stepping stone? I have no real idea at this point, and it feels surreal even thinking about it. Like I'm a parakeet dreaming of piloting a Mars mission. I feel kind of adrift. Well, close enough. The word escapes me. LOL.
I also find it depressing to think about, Val. It isn't just my own situation that I find distressing, (though obviously that is true), but like you, that nobody else seems concerned about all of this wasted human potential. It's so sad that we've devolved to considering human beings' potential to be defined solely by their work history. It's so needlessly restrictive.
