Comments on: A Brain Drain to Nowhere

By: randform » Blog Archive » on high teach speed

randform » Blog Archive » on high teach speed — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 09:32:08 +0000

[...] even more frustrating it is if it is not teaching, but remote jobs like cab driving or administrative duties which are keeping you from research. Or a general burocracy which is incompatible with the the [...]

By: Phillip Huggan

Phillip Huggan — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 13:43:39 +0000

It should be easy enough to make a list of task that can be delegated to lower paid employees. The assumption is a professor will then output more or more quality work with more free time. If not a some of the funding should come from a salary cut.
For the above examples, I doubt there is a substitute for writing progress reports or sitting on a review panel (whatever that means). But the revenue management rules can be handled by someone lesser paid as long as the researcher keeps a folder of receipts and other paperwork.

By: William Nelson

William Nelson — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 05:03:25 +0000

Researchers who have done quality work in the past and have submitted a quality proposal should be given the money and trusted to do the right thing with it, without a lot of pointless oversight. If they don’t perform, then no money next time, plus no publication, no tenure, etc…there are so many other incentives.
Less oversight will be more cost effective as well as ensuring that the best scientists continue to choose to work in this country rather than others.

By: Warren Lockhart

Warren Lockhart — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:25:44 +0000

michael vassar,

You make it sound like the only cause of accelerating advance is the population increase. The main cause of acceleration is that we use our previous tools to fashion the next generation of tools. Our progress would accelerate even with a constant number of scientists.

In any case, a few simple observations should be enough to convince you that the rate of advance is not flat – you don’t need to play a guessing game. It’s a shame that scientists are less productive because of office politics, paperwork and pointless meetings, but it won’t change the ultimate outcome for the human race.

By: michael vassar

michael vassar — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 06:08:01 +0000

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former.
If 10% more work doubles productivity then activites that reduce work time 50% reduce output 99%. Reducing work 42% reduces output 97%
This is almost exactly enough to compensate for the increased number of scientists over the course of the 20th century, possibly maintaining a constant rather than exponentially increasing rate of real advance.

By: Carl Shulman

Carl Shulman — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 05:27:29 +0000

If researcher capacity increases through learning by doing, then just reducing hours for real research in any fashion (not just grant bureaucracy, but also office politics in academia, serving on committees, etc) will reduce production more than linearly.

Of course, as you say, this is worse because it qualitatively shapes the kind of research that is done, biasing it towards less innovative work with higher likelihood of modest success and lower expected value.