The Academic Job Market Tanks

"This is a year of no jobs." Ph.D.s are stacked up "like planes hovering over La Guardia. -- Catherine Stimpson, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at New York University.

The above quote is taken from a recent article in the New York Times. Although people usually flock to graduate school in a down economy, the down economy means fewer spots in graduate school. This is just as well, it seems, if there are fewer jobs for graduating Ph.D.s.

The article is based mostly on anecdote, but the anecdotes match what I have seen as well. A graduate student from UT-Austin frets that more and more job searches have been pulled as universities announce hiring freezes. Two colleagues of mine who were on the market this year also reported jobs they had applied for disappearing. One has managed to find a post-doc position; the future of the other is uncertain.

For those who want numbers, there are a few in the article. It reports 15% drop in history department job searches and a 25% drop in the length of the American Mathematic Association's largest list of job postings.

In addition to the problems faced by people on the market, this is problematic for a country that wants to increase its intellectual output. Ph.D.s are long and hard and not worth it if there is no job at the end. Discouraging employment figures are not going to help the president's goal of increasing our nation's supply of scientists and engineers. To the extent that the work of historians and area-studies researchers informs policy, it seems we'd want to make sure there are employment prospects for humanities students as well.

Again, the Times has no numbers, but the article quoted a few discouraged undergraduates who are putting off graduate study (though frankly I don't think going straight from undergraduate to graduate programs is a good idea, anyway). Moreover, they point to Thomas Benton, a columnist for The Chronicle of Higher Eduction -- academia's trade journal -- who has been actively discouraging students from going into the humanities, arguing that it makes no sense unless you are wealthy or well-connected. I'm not sure undergraduates read the Chronicle, but the existence of that sentiment is troubling.

Ours is a knowledge-driven economy. Everybody seems to recognize that in the push to get more Americans to go to college. Hopefully, there will be professors there to teach them.

Will There be a Neuroscience Culture War?

Martha Farah (Neuroscientist, UPenn) and Nancey Murphy (Theologian, Fuller Theological Seminary), writing in a recent issue of Science, argue that "neuroscience will post a far more fundamental challenge than evolutionary biology to many religions."

The reason is straightforward:

Most religions endorse the idea of a soul (or spirit) that is distinct from the physical body ... However, as neuroscience begins to reveal the mechanisms underlying personality, love, morality, and spirituality, the idea of a ghost in the machine becomes strained. Brain imaging indicates that all of these traits have physical correlates in brain function. Furthermore, pharmacologic influences on these traits, as well as the effects of localized stimulation or damage, demonstrate that the brain processes in question are not mere correlates but are the physical bases of these central aspects of our personhood. If these aspects of the person are all features of the machine, why have a ghost at all? [Emphasis mine.]

While not at all detracting from their point, it's interesting that neuroscience does not yet seem to be a major target of religious conservatives. The authors argue that such a backlash is a brewin' ("'Nonmaterialist neuroscience' has joined 'intelligent design' as an alternative interpretation of scientific data"), but the evidence is a recently published book. The term gets a paltry number of Google hits, the first few of which, at least, are people attacking the concept.

They make one further interesting point: dualism is a relatively new concept, which came into existence about a century later than Jesus. By implication, those who insist on a strict interpretation of the Bible actually should support materialism. If the culture war comes, this is unlikely to make a compelling argument, but it does say something very interesting about human nature.

Yes, HR 801 is about Open-Access Journals

Stevan Harnad has questioned some of the claims in my last post. I hate to say this, as a part-time semanticist, but Harnad's criticisms of the above post are mostly semantics. He did more accurately quote the letter of the NIH and Harvard policies (and I apologize for my sloppy wording), but I believe my formulation got much closer to the intent and impact of these policies.

Harnad points out that the NIH and Harvard policies do not mandate publishing in open-access journals; they simply mandate making publications open-access after a certain period of time. As far as I can tell, pretty much everybody -- including Conyers, the bill's sponsor, and probably Harnad -- understands that these policies hurt subscription-based journals. After all, it is very hard to sell access to something which is free.

It might not have been clear from his comment, but Harnad supports free access to peer-reviewed research. His focus is not on open-access journals, however, so he has some stake in pointing out that there are other open-access models. I appreciate this point.

Still, I think the key issue is that these papers still need to go through peer-review and publication, something Harnad goes to pains to point out elsewhere. Currently, we have two models: subscription-based journals, which pass on the costs of review and publication to the reader, and open-access journals, which pass on the costs to the author or a private foundation. If these policies make the subscription-based journals less profitable, then the open-access journals presumably become more competitive.

Currently, open-access journals have several things working against them. For one thing, they (typically) cost the authors money. I have more than once wanted to submit a paper to the Journal of Vision, but I can't accord the $85/page publication costs. Also, the open-access journals are newer and less prestigious, and in academics, prestige of the journal can count for a great deal. If the open-access policies force subscription-based publishers to raise their own publication fees or go out of business, this presumably should help open-access journals .

I used "presumably" a few times, and if there are good reasons to believe that policies like those of NIH and Harvard harm open-access journals and subscription journals alike, then I'd like to know about them.

--
One minor point about the distinction between for-profit and non-profit journals: Subscription-based journals, whether for-profit or non-profit, sell subscriptions and thus are paid for their role in publication. Thus, I'm not really sure what Harnad was getting at in pointing out that some non-profit journals also support Conyers' bill, which is intended to support the subscription model.

Congress Considers Killing Open-Access Journals

It's often repeated that science thrives on the free exchange of ideas. Thus, the fact that it actually costs a lot of money to get access to scientific papers ($146/year for Science alone) has struck more than one person as odd.

A recent movement has led to the creation of open-access journals, which do not charge access fees. This movement has gained traction at universities (e.g., Harvard) and also at government agencies. NIH recently required the researchers they fund to publish in journals which are either open-access or make their papers open-access within a year of publication.

Fortunately for the for-profit journal system, Congress is considering H.R. 801, which would forbid NIH and other government agencies from implementing such policies. The conceit of the bill is that NIH is requiring researchers to give up their copyrights, though of course researchers hardly ever -- and, as far as I know, never -- retain the copyrights to their works. Publishers require the transfer of the copyright as a condition of publication.

Talking Robots

Farhad Manjoo has an article in Slate on text-to-voice technology. We've come a long way in making talking robots in recent years (does anybody remember the old Mac OS's terrible talking voice?), but the technology has a long way to go yet. The article has a good historical overview and some great sound clips.

Can Peer Review Solve Conflicts of Interest?

As I wrote recently, Stephen Quake has been writing about conflicts of interest in research over at The Wild Side blog. He proposes solving these problems with peer review. I like the article, and he has many thoughtful things to say on the topic, but I don't really understand this proposal.

He doesn't give a lot of details as to how this would work. For instance:

When this bureaucracy asked me for a plan to manage conflicts in my own research, I wrote one that described all of the steps involved in peer review – and the COI committee sent it back as “too much.” In their view the process that scientific publications go through was more rigorous than necessary.

This reads as if the committee thought it would be too much work for him, but it sounds like too much work for the peer reviewers. Peer reviewers are not professional peer reviewers: they are typically volunteers from within the community who review papers partly out of a sense of social responsibility. Any proposal for expanding peer review has to keep in mind that the reviewers might not want the extra responsibilities.

I have not seen his proposal, but I'm not sure if it would work even in principle. As I wrote previously, nobody really knows what the data are but the researcher. Analyses can always be run in many different ways, potentially giving different results -- a problem whether your concern is conscious bias or unconscious bias. It's just not clear what peer review is supposed to do about that.

Scientists vs. Engineers

What is the difference between a scientist and an engineer? Cowbirds in Love boils it down to its essence:

Experimental Pragmatics & Visa Problems

Experimental pragmatics is the science of language use. It's also a great conference held in Europe every year and a half or so. I'll be attending this spring to present a poster. Well, the poster is an excuse; mainly it is simply the conference for my field, and just about everybody who works on problems similar to the ones I work on will be there.

I am excited about going to Europe for the conference (the other two I'm going to this spring are in Denver and in Davis, California), which is a good thing, since we may all be doing more of that in the future.

This morning, the New York Times reports that conference organizers are increasingly reluctant to hold their conferences in the United States. The reason is a resurgence of visa problems for foreign researchers trying to enter America. Many will remember that this was a major problem post-9/11 and contributed to the precipitous fall of America's standing as a place for higher education. These issues improved somewhat in recent years but have mysteriously cropped up again in the last six months.

The article uses no hard numbers to support its claims about an increase in visa processing times or the decrease in American-based conferences. Still, the decrease in US-based conferences makes sense; American visas are hard to get, and their availability has been unpredictable in recent years.

All Scientists Have Conflicts of Interest (Duh)

In a thoughtful and provocative piece in the The Wild Side blog at NYTimes.com, Stephen Quake takes up the issue of conflicts of interest in research. By "conflicts of interest," Quake means researchers who have a financial interest in the outcome of their research. It is becoming increasingly common for academic researchers to partner with businesses in developing new technology.

He raises many important and interesting questions, some of which I'll write about in the future. One point that deserves much more space was the fact that many researchers have conflicts of interest even when they aren't selling a product:

Interestingly, it is not unusual for basic scientists with no commercial relationships to be dependent on grants for their salaries and therefore have a significant personal financial interest in preserving their grants. Although COI experts have assured me that that this is not a conflict that needs to be managed, I must confess that I have some difficulty with the distinction they are trying to draw. Who is under greater temptation to bias the results of their research: the financially comfortable academic entrepreneur, or the ivory tower scientist who may not be able to pay his mortgage if his grant is not renewed?

What may not be clear to the casual reader is that research agencies like the NIH prefer to give grants to researchers with a history of success. Last time they gave you a grant, did you publish a series of important papers, or did all your projects end in failure? In the latter case, you may be out of a job.

Nobody Sees Your Data But You

A baseball player is paid largely on his ability to perform on the field. If you are known as a power-hitter, you better produce home-runs.

The major difference between a baseball star and a research star, is that a baseball player's performance is public. Everybody at the game knows whether he hit a home run or struck out.

In contrast, the only person with access to a researcher's data is the researcher. It is as if a baseball player went to an automatic batting cage where nobody was looking, took a few swings, came out and told the team management how many home runs he hit and was paid accordingly.

A number of non-scientists I've talked to seem to be under the impression that during peer review, the reviewers check the data. They don't. They can't, really. In my experiments, I ask people questions and mark down whether they got it right or wrong. The reviewers weren't in the testing room with me, so they simply have to take my word for it.

Now let's say you are a researcher and it's time to renew your grant. You've been swinging and missing -- your data are uninterpretable or simply uninteresting. The easiest way to make the data more interesting is to "fix" them.

All Scientists Have Conflicts of Interest

Ultimately, all scientists have a conflict of interest, because our promotions and salaries are ultimately based on the research we have produced, whether directly or indirectly. And there are many non-financial incentives. Nobody wants to be seen as a failure.

I don't believe many people are simply making up their data (though it happens). A larger concern is selectively reporting results. Suppose you are in the situation in which you have run four different experiments. Three of them support one conclusion, but the fourth supports the opposite conclusion.

You simply can't publish that. No journal will take a paper showing conflicting results. You can either give up on the project and admit to having wasted perhaps 2-3 years of your life. You can continue doing research to try to figure out why you are getting conflicting results, perhaps succeeding, perhaps not, but in any case spending time and money you might not have. Or you can write a paper about the first three experiments and forget about the "bad" experiment. Some people take the latter route. This is best-known in pharmaceutical research, but it happens everywhere.

Even worse, perhaps you run an experiment, the results of which challenge the theory for you which you are known, an experiment which challenges the validity of your life's work. Who really wants to publish that?

What to Do

Quake's point is that you can't eliminate conflicts of interest from science. A baseball player needs to win games. A researcher needs to publish. As long as this is true, baseball players will have an incentive to take steroids and researchers will have incentives to "improve" their work. Any proposed solution that ignores these basic facts is doomed to fail

Are Scientists Really Cheating?

This article might have looked really gloomy. My point is simply that everybody has the incentive to cheat, not that everybody does. In the course of your life, there will be a number of instances in which it would be in your financial interests to murder somebody. Still, most people don't murder.

It is popular in some circles to assume most people are fundamentally bad and will do anything they can get away with, but my experience -- professionally and personally -- is otherwise.

Moreover, academic fraud is generally not in one's long-term interests. Even if it isn't exposed, others will fail to replicate your results and your theories will be disproved. Again, for a researcher, ultimately the best thing for your career is to be right. And fraud won't help you with that.


(Image sourced from blog.springsource.com)

Obama's Science Budget

The administration has released a previous of its proposed budget. After years of stagnant funding for research, there are obviously many people interested to know whether Obama will live up to promises of investing in science.

There is no centralized science directive, so it is hard to evaluate the budget as a whole. However, what I can find looks promising. The NSF 2010 budget includes a $950 million (16%) increase over 2008. NASA is similarly getting a $1.5 billion dollar (9%) raise over 2008 levels. This is of course on top of large supplements to both programs through the Stimulus Package. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is unfortunately buried within a larger department, and there isn't enough information to evaluate it. The Department of Energy appears to be getting increased research funding, but I wasn't able to track down exact numbers.

Concerns about the deficit aside, after so many years of depressing, damaging budgets, it is hard not to be excited. Someone at the top seems to actually care.

What the Stimulus Package Means for Science

When the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act went through Congress, I assumed my favorite provisions would be stripped out. Instead, the Senate increased the funding for NIH to over $6 billion. By the time President Obama signed the law, the total influx into NIH had reached $10.4 billion over two years (out of an annual budget of $29 billion, which has been flat for 6 years). I'm not sure when the extra $2 billion for NSF entered the bill, but that money is on its way as well.

Readers of this blog know that this is a major change in US policy. I had hopes for this administration, but that this is actually a lot more than I hoped for.

Once the celebration is done, though, it's important to note that even if these funding increases become permanent, it will at best help us keep pace with the rest of the world, rather than continuing to fall behind the leaders. It's certainly not enough to guarantee America's future as the leading producer of science.

This New York Times article has more information on how the science stimulus moneys will be
spent.

New Experiment: Learning Verbs

I run a graduate student research workshop for students in the linguistics and psychology departments here at Harvard. We did a segment on word-learning. One of our guest-speakers started her presentation by pointing out that the field often things of word learning as learning nouns, despite the fact that there are many other types of words that probably have to be learned differently.

The experiments at the Cognition & Language Laboratory have been guilty of this oversight (this one for example). I'm happy to say that this flaw has been rectified. Late last week I posted the GorpTest, in which you can try to learn new verbs.

I'll be writing more on this topic in the near future. In the meantime, please participate.

Emotions Caused by Your Brain

Yesterday, the New York Times ran a science article under the following heading: In Pain and Joy of Envy, the Brain May Play a Role. It is a very well-written and engaging article of the subject of envy, which is a fascinating emotion.

The title, however, leaves something to be desired. It seems to imply that there was some doubt over whether the brain plays a role in envy. The modern scientific consensus is that the brain plays a role in all emotions.

So why write this article? To tell the truth, the article doesn't fit the title very well: the article isn't really about proving a role for the brain in envy. A better title might have been "The Science of Envy." I suspect the editors chose the title because it is well-known that people believe cognitive research more if you stick the word "brain" in a few places. In journalistic parlance, neuroscience is a good hook.

However, as a public service, and in probably a vain attempt to forestall future articles with titles such as "In Pain and Joy of love/hate/surprise/etc., the Brain May Play a Role," here are a list of emotions and psychological states (courtesy of WordNet) in which the brain certainly plays a role, to the extent we can be certain about anything:

abashment
abhorrence
absolutethreshold
acidity
acridity
activity
addiction
affection
agape
aggravation
aggression
aim
alarm
anaphrodisia
angst
animus
antagonism
anxiety
anxiousness
aphrodisia
appetite
ardor
aroma
arousal
assumption
astringence
attention
attitude
attributing
auditoryperception
awareness
awe
badtemper
beholding
belief
belligerence
beneficence
benevolence
bitter
blessedness
bloodlust
boding
bold
boredom
brave
breakdown
brightnessconstancy
caprice
caring
cautious
chafe
chagrin
chill
chromesthesia
class feeling
cogitation
cold
cold feet
colorconstancy
coloredhearing
comfortzone
competence
concentration
concept
conditioned response
confidence
conscience
consideration
constancy
constriction
construction
construing
contemplation
contrast
copulation
cowardly
craving
creeps
curiosity
curious
cutaneoussensation
deficit
deliberation
desire
despisal
detection
devotion
differencethreshold
diffidence
discombobulation
discomfiture
discontentment
disgruntlement
displeasure
dissatisfaction
dread
dream
driven
dudgeon
dysphoria
ecstasy
edginess
education
elation
embarras
embarrassmentsment
embitterment
emotionalstate
empathy
emulation
enamoredness
engrossment
enmity
estimate
euphoria
exhilaration
expectation
exuberance
facerecognition
faculty
faintness
fear
fed
feeling
finish[winetasting]
fit
fondness
fondregard
fragility
frisson
frustration
fundamental
fury
gaiety
generosity
gloom
gloomy
gratefulness
gratification
gratitude
hackles
hankering
happiness
harassment
harmonic
hatred
health
heart
heartstrings
homesickness
horror
huffiness
humility
hunch
hysteria
idea
image
immersion
impatient
impression
incautious
incense
incentive
indignation
infirmity
infuriation
insecurity
intention
interest
interpretation
interpreting
intimidation
intoxication
introspection
intuitions
irascibility
ire
itching
jealousy
jitteriness
jnd
joy
jubilance
judgement
judgment
lazy
lecherousness
lemon
letdown
levity
libido
limen
lividity
longing
love
lovesickness
loyalty
maleficence
malevolence
malice
malodor
masking
meekness
melody
misanthropy
misocainea
misogamy
misogyny
misology
misoneism
misopedia
mittelschmerz
motivation
motive
murderousness
music
music[music]
musicalperception
musicofthespheres
musings
musk
nationalism
naughty
need
nervous
niff
nostalgia
nymphomania
objective
objectiveorgoal
objectrecognition
open
opinion
opticalfusion
outlook
overtone
pain>twinge
painthreshold
panic
passion
patient
perspective
pessimism
phantom limb pain
piece
pining
pins and needles
pique
plan
pointofview
pondering
position
pressure
projection
protectiveness
proud
prurience
pruritus
pruritusani
pruritusvulvae
puppylove
purpose
qualityoflife
racket
radiance
rationalized
reaction
reasoning
reflection
regard
relish
representation
resentment
reserve
responsible
sadness
salt
satyriasis
scare
scent
scruple
security
seethe
self-depreciation
self-disgust
selfish
sensation>odor
sense
sensuality
serenity
serious
sexiness
sexualdesire
shame
shamefacedness
shapeconstancy
shyness
side
sinking
sizeconstancy
smell
softspot
somesthesia
sound>tone
sour
speculation
speechperception
stage fright
stance
state
stomach
supposing
surmising
suspense
suspicious
sweet
sweettooth
sympathy
synesthesia
taste>tang
temperature>warmth
temptation
tenderness
terror
thinking
thought
tickle
timid
timidness
tingle
titillation
to stop loving
tolerant
tone
topognosia
touch
trepidation
triumph
trust
twinge
umbrage
uneasiness
unhappiness
up
urge
urtication
vanilla
velleity
view
viewpoint
vigil
vindictiveness
vision
visualspace
wakefulness
warmth
weakness
whistful
whitenoise
willies
wishfulness
wishing
wistfulness
withdrawn
wor
worship
wrath

Getting in to Graduate School

It's standard dogma that when the economy is bad, people go back to school. Although it doesn't appear to be major news yet, a number of schools are reporting an increase in applications (here and here, but see also here).

Despite an increase in applications, it is very possible fewer people will actually go to graduate school. This recession may be unique.

There are two problems. First, masters, MD and JD programs are very expensive, and students typically require loans. I shouldn't have to elaborate on why this might present a difficulty for the prospective graduate student right now.

Second, universities are cutting the number of students they are admitting. I don't have systematic numbers, but I know that the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is reducing the number of students admitted for PhD programs. If the richest university in the country is slashing enrollment, I don't think I'm going out on too far a limb in assuming others are as well. Large private universities are depending on their endowments (i.e., the stock market) to cover operating expenses, and students are expensive. State schools are dependent on government financing, which is also drying up.

It is obvious why PhD students at a school like Harvard are an expense: instead of paying tuition, they are paid a salary by the school. I don't know if the enrollment cut will hit the professional schools. It is well-known that undergraduate programs are typically run at a short-term loss (tuition does not cover expenses), with the school figuring they'll make up the difference in future alumni donations. I do not know, but suspect, that the same is true for the professional schools. That said, the only schools at Harvard right now that don't seem to have a hiring freeze are the Law and Medical schools.

As I said, this is not being widely reported, and I do not have numbers for the industry as a whole. Hopefully I am wrong, because such a trend would be bad. During a recession, more people suddenly have time for school. When the recovery comes, it meets a better-educated and more capable workforce, (presumably) further fueling the recovery. This time, the opposite may happen.

Why Don't Babies Talk Like Adults: Coglanglab at Scientific American

The Scientific American Mind Matters blog is running an article by me on language learning. The moderator of this blog, Jonah Lehrer, asks scientists to pick what they think is one of the most exciting recent papers and blog about it.

Here's how I set up the problem:

Many people assume children learn to talk by copying what they hear. In other words, babies listen to the words adults use and the situations in which they use them and imitate accordingly. Behaviorism, the scientific approach that dominated American cognitive science for the first half of the 20th century, made exactly this argument. This “copycat” theory can’t explain why toddlers aren’t as loquacious adults, however. After all, when was the last time you heard literate adults express themselves in one-word sentences (“bottle,” “doggie”) or in short phrases such as, “Mommy open box.”

The rest of the post describes what I think is one of the most important recent language experiments and how it addresses this paradox.