I did try, but my best was more like "my best, considering". Grad school and career options after grad school never sat quite right with me. Still, after college I wanted to keep my options open, learn a few more things and figure out what I wanted to do. Having done that eventually, I was able to leave and do what I really wanted. Intellectually, I still rely heavily on skills I have developed while studying and doing science. In what I do now, there are few, if any, other people who have this background. Plus, I am generally not very typical in ways I think or do things. So I guess you're right, none of this is normal. But I like it that way. It works for me.

But, again, Nicoloau is not doing anything illegal or anything the scientific community would ever criticize him for. He is simply utilizing the resources, including human resources, that are available to him to the maximum effect as allowed by the system. He is excellent at that. (I am sure that he is also, in fact, very clever, but nobody is clever enough to make the chemistry do itself.) That makes him as big a name as he is, and that could get him a Nobel prize before he retires. What a typical grad student or postdoc gets out of the deal is another matter. Some continue in his footsteps and might have their own Nobel prizes some day. I just don't think that, bird's eye view, the current system — where people like Nicolaou shine — is even productive by today's standards. There is a big cost to pay for having too much emphasis on competition and too little on cooperation.

Or maybe it is good enough by today's standards. Maybe my standards are too high for today's standards. But if nobody's ever were, today would never be any better than yesterday.

Any truthful factual statements and any statements of opinion are not slander (or libel, which is the correct term in the case of published words) by definition. I appreciate that romanticizing aged practices of academia can lead one to be out of touch with the modern world, but nowadays there's this thing called FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

No. Doing science is not something you would normally do if there is nothing better to do. AND you are made explicitly aware of the horrors of it.

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=313

You're right that no one signs up for the pressure cooker part. Maybe the right solution then is not necessarily to get rid of it. Seriously, science is not a psychologically sound process, at all. You fail. And fail, and fail, and fail, and somehow you have to have your head straight enough and push through all of that negative psychological reinforcement, and either 1) fake your results (obviously not preferred) or 2) triage what you have and discover the minimal publishable unit or 3) come up with the answer.

This is antithetical to the way that our brains are wired. Luckily, many scientists have their heads all wired wrong, to be neutral, or maybe get some sort of masochistic pleasure out of it (the ones who get sadistic pleasure also may be predisposed to become PIs). All other scientists are either golden children, ass-kissers (or both), incredibly lucky, fake things from the get-go, or drop out.

The "pressure cooker" to some degree is inherent to this a-psychological process of science. As more and more of the low-hanging fruit are picked, it only becomes more difficult, and to make matters worse, we're throwing more and more money at the problems (think LHC, NIH), creating perverse incentives to hire more intellectually and emotionally unqualified people into research positions.

The solution is clear. We need to spend LESS money on science, and actually warn grad students about the stupidity of pursuing a career in science. We need to get rid of the cultural capital associated with being a scientist.

I am a PhD who is working in a no shit BS biologist position at a research institute. One of my co-workers, is a BS biologist from a small unknown college who is my age and wants to become the next Jay Keasling or Stanley Pruisner. I mean it's not impossible (my PhD advisor came from a small no-name college, was VP at an independent research institute, and now has a drug in phase III trials). But I think it's an uphill battle. And he wants to do it because he thinks it will make him famous. Meanwhile, he laments that he's not banging chicks and he spends hours in the lab putzing around not getting science to work.

Who is going to look him straight in the eye and tell him that he's not completely stupid, but he's a dumbass for trying, and by trying he's shitting in the pool and making things worse for everyone? I did. And hell, I could very well be wrong. But you know what, the "coolness factor" of being someone who calls the shots and gets to do "mad science" and enjoy the perks of being a PI (including all the chicks, and "independence", and money that it comes with) is too much of a draw.

1. Grad school isn't free. When you account for the earnings you forfeit during your graduate studies, you actually lose money. "Studies have shown" that a lifetime of post-doctoral earnings cannot make up for the forfeited earnings during your studies. The point is that a Ph.D. is a financial sacrifice. It is not a free ride and it comes with a cost. I am not arguing that we should give a Ph.D. candidate $100K/yr. I am just stating a fact - it is a financial loss, not gain.

2. A Ph.D. makes no one rich. By and large, industry is skeptical of Ph.D. holders and hesitates to hire them. I have been personally told by a high-tech executive that the first step of screening prospective candidates is to break out the pile of Ph.D. holders and throw it in the garbage. In industry, a Ph.D. is very close to a liability. I've even heard of Ph.D. holders withholding the fact they completed a Ph.D. just so they could get a job.

We go to grad school to learn and develop the research skills. Nobody signs up for the "pressure cooker" part. Those who want to be pushed to the edge know where to go. The Marines.

Grad school is challenging, and it should remain so. But it should be challenging because of the intellectual toll it takes on you. Emotional strain doesn't make you a better researcher. It interferes with your ability and motivation to become one. You could argue that it's a weeding out process. And then we could talk about whether it's an efficient and fair weeding out process - and what kind of people does it really weed out.

So nobody's advocating watering down the intellectual challenge. It's not "grad school is too hard and I can't cut it". Clearly we already proved we're bright enough to get in. If anything, the intellectual challenge brought us in to academia. It didn't push us out.

All we're saying is "Cut the crap".