Re: [Phys-L] [ Academic BS and other

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 12/03/2015 11:26 AM, Jim Diamond wrote:

> I think that [...] mastery of bullshit will advance one's career in academia
> <http://jameshaytonphd.com/academic-career-harsh-truths/> a great deal.

I call BS on that.

1) The cited reference does not support the assertion.  Hayton is not
 spewing BS, and is not recommending BS.

2a) If you are at an institution where BS advances your career, find
 another job, stat.  Any institution that rewards or even tolerates
 BS is a lousy place to work, and the institution itself is likely
 to fail.

2b) Conversely, at any healthy institution, if you try that approach
 somebody is going to call you on it.  It will ruin your reputation,
 which in turn ruins your chances of promotion and ruins your ability
 to get funding.

==================

As for the Hayton in particular:  
 1) He's absolutely right that there are more PhDs produced than there
   are academic job openings.  There's not necessarily anything wrong
   with that.  There exist perfectly reasonable non-academic jobs.

 2) He's absolutely right that if you go to a conference and don't
  interact with people, you're mostly wasting your time.  A great
  deal of useful work gets done in the corridors, involving people
  who are skipping this-or-that talk.

  Indeed there are lots of conferences, including some very fancy
  conferences, that schedule talks for only part of the day, and
  leave the rest of the time open for informal interactions.

    As usual, all the extremes are wrong.  Sometimes giving a great
    talk is a way if "introducing" yourself.  There might be some
    guy in the audience who likes the talk and ends up making you
    a life-changing job offer.  Guess how I know.

More generally, communication is part of the job description.  You
can't just do the work;  you have to /communicate/ the results.  If
you build a better mousetrap and don't tell anybody, the world will
*not* beat a path to your door.