Richard Hamming: You and Your Research

Re:Richard Hamming: You and Your Research by Wowfunhappy on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @08:13AM (#35786268)

But I would hope academics are not doing literally the same research? In other words, are you saying that if we had fewer people working in academia, the same quantity of research would get done in the world?

It's okay even if different researchers are working on similar problems, because replicability is important.

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Re:Richard Hamming: You and Your Research by anonymouskimmer on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @01:42PM (#35791362)

Enough people drop out of the race, or are filtered out, that it becomes effectively zero sum.

A common control in sociological studies of educational systems is to compare people who are just above a particular cutoff (say a 2.00 GPA), and just below that cutoff (say a 1.99 GPA). These people are often effectively equivalent except for one good or bad day, or one harsh or forgiving instructor.

If an academic department makes 15 positions available for graduate students, it will have 15 graduate students. Regardless. Is the 16th applicant who just didn't make the cut worse than the 15th who did? Probably not. And they might have been better, or at least have been a better fit.

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