Nit: I know we like to be all anti-intellectual here at HN, but Rachel's claim that "having a PhD" correlates strongly with "lacking the ability for independence of thought or action" is pretty ridiculous. Undergraduate and masters programs may be fairly structured, but once you get into a PhD program you are shockingly, horrifyingly alone. Those without the ability to act, plan, or motivate themselves independently do not make it through the 4-8 year (depending on your domain) process. Very occasionally, you'll find an advisor or a lab that will hold your hand through the entire multi-year process, but those experiences are a rarity.
Earning a PhD certainly requires independent thought and action, but those are directed towards goals imposed by someone else, typically an adviser or one's committee, and the typical grad student rarely questions those goals.
This capacity for creative work in pursuit of others' ends is exactly why Rachel says PhDs are such valuable minions.
The book "Disciplined Minds" [1] makes this point in a radical way. I didn't agree with everything it said, but its point is that higher education selects for people willing to jump through arbitrary hoops for nebulous returns, and that that conformism is valuable to employers.
Forgive me if this is naive but I thought the way it's supposed to work is that you pick a phd advisor/program whose goals/research match your interests.
External funding means there will always be some compromise but couldn't we draw a similar analogy with companies and their customers? I would hope a phd program would allow someone to work on their interests (aligned with their advisor's) for a much longer time than a comparable job in industry would allow.
> Earning a PhD certainly requires independent thought and action, but those are directed towards goals imposed by someone else, typically an adviser or one's committee, and the typical grad student rarely questions those goals.
They don't question the advisor's goals? Do they now? I found that learning how to manage your boss is the one most important soft skill to have doing one's PhD. Compare that to your garden-variety BSc program, where the only thing you do is dutifully attend lectures and hand in homework.
I do wonder what kind of people makes that sort of statement. It can only be those with nothing more than a BSc - they have attended a university but don't know how the sausage is made.
"Disciplined Minds" was written by someone knowledgeable. From ch. 15:
"Remember also that profesional training is preceded by at least 16 years of preparatory socialization in the schools. Students who go on to professional training tend to be the "best" students—those who, among other things, excel at playing by the rules. [...]
"Alone in a large program designed to mold you, you cannot uphold an independent outlook for long. By yourself you can't even maintain a point of reference against which to sense that your outlook is drifting and to gauge how far it has drifted, because the training system, so as not to sabotage itself, excludes sources of critical distance."
It even meshes with what ender7 said. He wrote, "once you get into a PhD program you are shockingly, horrifyingly alone." And he pointed out the preparatory programs.
The book also delves into your point about "learning how to manage your boss". Many cynically "play the game" and generally do a bit better than those who don't. But even that's part of the system. You know the rules and still subordinate yourself, ironically believing you're in control of Big Boss. Remember, a boss is defined as someone who gives you commands which you obey. An inherently pathetic position, which many frankly call (wage) slavery. The court may plot and scheme, but the king is still their king.
What? I've found some very intellectually stimulating discussions here. I don't get the PhD === intellectual thing you're talking about any more than I get the mainstream media equating Edward Snowden's high-school dropout status as indicative of his intelligence.
In fact, Snowden seems like a classic intellectual whereas your claims that possessing a PhD correlate highly with intellectualism seem somewhat suspect given my own experiences with possessors of PhDs.
Intellectualism is just an interest in ideas and exploring those ideas, and formal educational achievements don't indicate anything other than formal educational achievement.
| "having a PhD" correlates strongly with "lacking
| the ability for independence of thought or action"
| is pretty ridiculous
| Those without the ability to act, plan, or
| motivate themselves independently do not make it
>>I know we like to be all anti-intellectual here at HN, but Rachel's claim that "having a PhD" correlates strongly with "lacking the ability for independence of thought or action" is pretty ridiculous.
In considering the entire sentence, it seems that the argument is:
PhD !== inability for "independence of thought or action", which is a sign of anti-intellectualism on HN (presumably because having a PhD has some sort of implied relationship with intellectualism.) The holding of a PhD is the object of criticism in OP's eyes, the criticism being an expression of anti-intellectualism here.
I certainly agree with OP that both PhD holders or non-PhD holders can be intellectuals or can be "non-intellectuals," but I was merely pointing out my impression that having PhD doesn't imply anything other than fulfilling the criteria to obtain a PhD.
Acting and planning have nothing to do with being an intellectual in my opinion. Those are organizational skills. Intellectualism is more a love of ideas and exploring those ideas, in my obviously not so humble opinion. I've met PhDs that were incredibly erudite about their specific field but completely disinterested in anything outside it, which I would consider "non-intellectualism."
Achieving a PhD is about learning and understanding the world around you via science and reason, even if only a small part. In that sense, by the very definition of a PhD, it's holders are almost surely intellectuals. holders are intellectuals. Here is google's definition:
in·tel·lec·tu·al·ism
Noun
1. The exercise of the intellect at the expense of the emotions.
2. The theory that knowledge is wholly or mainly derived from pure reason; rationalism.
It might be more accurate to make the hypothesis that there is an anti-phd and anti-education sentiment here on HN rather than an anti-intellectualism sentiment.
Your post is a good example of this. First you set up your own definition of 'intellectualism' in a way that most PhDs fail. Namely, you imply that intellectualism involves breadth of knowledge. Then, you go on to claim that most PhDs are not intellectuals, but of course you and presumably your non-PhD social group are intellectuals. Why do this? I've seen others here setup different sorts of scenarios to try to claim PhD holders are somehow inferior.
A common one that has been put forth several times here on HN involves a hiring manager setting up a situation where they underpay prospective PhD hires by a huge margin. So much so that they pay them less than non-PhD hires. Naturally, being so at odds with actual market rate for CS PhDs, this results in only the very worst possible candidates: those who didn't get a professor position and further didn't get into one of the many high paying jobs. They heroically conclude that in their experience all PhDs are useless.
This is really not a nice part of HN.
Let's go back to the original comment about "having a PhD" correlating with a lack of independent thought. Again, one of the very requirements of a PhD is that it must be produced from independent thought. It must be your own work, not that of your advisers, and even more so, it must be novel, not something you might have learned from others.
You can argue with the effectiveness of enforcing this, but in my experience it really is something that is thought of during PhD defences. Claiming that the reality of the situation is the complete opposite of this is an extreme claim that Rachel didn't back up in the slightest.
Nobody's yet brought up the inherently somewhat feudalistic nature of the entire PHD system, instead running off into the ditch about personal anti-intellectualism and such?
I don't have a strong agreement with the feudalistic argument, but I do recognize the analogy as it as applies to the PHD program and obviously in a somewhat separate way (or maybe not so separate way...) how it applies to obtaining minions.
