Spot the Brit?
Not sure which other countries have 3y bachelor’s degrees and will let you do a PhD without a master’s degree and also have 3y doctorate degrees
Expertise
Submitted 9 months ago by Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net to [deleted]
https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/35e811c1-c9c4-467d-a691-c43a08bbf2e7.webp
Comments
witty_username@feddit.nl 9 months ago
Canopyflyer@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Where do you need a Masters to attain a PhD? Honest question, I just never heard of it before.
My wife attained her MD/PhD from the University of Chicago/Pritzker and does not have a Masters. She’s on the MD/PhD committee for her university and they do not require anything other than a BS in the field of study.
With that said, it probably isn’t much of a stretch to just get a Masters in the way to a PhD.
Me? I’m depriving some poor village of its idiot. I have a BS and that’s it.
beerclue@lemmy.world 9 months ago
In the EU it’s usually like that. 3 years for a bachelor’s, 2 years for a master’s, only then you can start pursuing a phd.
I graduated in 2005, and back then we had a different system, where I did a single 5 year program for a computer science degree (engineering), that today is the equivalent of a master’s (diplom engineer). I could have continued to go for a dedicated master’s, another 2 years, but I got lazy.
Please_Do_Not@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Definitely depends on the field. Most “humanities” studies require a masters first, although for that reason many PhD programs include the step of getting your masters so it can all be done as a single track. So still a standard ~6 year program but you get both, masters after the first 3 and then PhD after 3 more. I’ve only ever run with folks in humanities I’m realizing, so I didn’t even realize there were PhDs you could get without a masters
wandermind@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
There are roughly speaking two kinds of systems. The kind of system where Bachelor is the default degree you get from university, and you can go on to get a Masters and/or a doctorate. And the other kind of system where the default university degree is a combined Bachelor and Masters, and you can study further to get a doctorate. The latter kind is in use in a lot of continental Europe, at least.
DrBob@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
I came from a very large lab; 18 post-docs, and half a dozen grad students. The general observation about the PhD portion of the MD/PhD program is that it tends to be very programmatic research. Typically applying a known technique to a neglected but not novel area. The straight PhDs had much higher expectations for novelty and depth. The MD/PhDs were out in three and the PhDs were five to six.
Korne127@lemmy.world 9 months ago
6 semester for a Bachelor’s degree is pretty common…
witty_username@feddit.nl 9 months ago
Yes and that addresses only one of the three parts of my statement
neuropean@kbin.social 9 months ago
Not usually for STEM in America, but we also don’t require a masters degree for PhD.
Still for most people in my program, it was 4 years of undergrad, followed by 2-4 years in a lab, then 5-7 years for a PhD, then another 2-5 years for post-doc, then finally get hired.
Hawk@lemmynsfw.com 9 months ago
Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Asia.
I’ve never heard of Masters for PhD? Coursework is opposite direction?
DrBob@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
Three years for a PhD? Must be a Brit or combined degree. Average is almost six at the moment.
Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 9 months ago
They are 5-6 in my neck of the woods. You can go straight to a PhD from a bachelor’s though
DrBob@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
There is some field dependency - mathematics is notoriously fast. The other one I talk about below is the PhD portion of an MD/PhD. In some fields (mine included) there’s 2 years of coursework plus lab research so it was heavily results driven.
SoleInvictus@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I’m a microbiologist, at least eight years for us.
skeletorfw@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Even as a Brit that’d be fast. Here you’re funded for 3.5y with 6mo unfunded “writing up time”.
TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 9 months ago
You did the meme and got upvotes? We’re doomed.
tygerprints@kbin.social 9 months ago
I dunno how, but my brother got his PhD in three years and was a doctor by the age of 21. Yes he was pretty smart to begin with, but he really did it in record time. I don't think it would be the same today, I think requirements have changed a lot since then.
habanhero@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
Simple solution, spend 1 second and decide to consciously ignore guy on internet for the rest of your life.
Works wonders for mental and physical health, zero downsides!
TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 9 months ago
True. Until 70+ million of them decide to vote in a fascist dictatorship.
Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 9 months ago
Fucking happening over here. The thing with echo chambers is that someone eventually starts farting, and then people start breathing it in. Those people start farting, and boom a moronic fascist dictatorship or radical conspiracy group is born
TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Well, sometimes there’s another step missing just before the Bullshit: “Use the small, narrow findings to inform a greater narrative beyond the data’s scope”
Wogi@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I love how all the comments in this thread are like “yeah but it is bullshit tho!”
TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Well I’d like to think I’m not! I wanted to point to an actually dubious thing where we might call into question a study, so we could still respect the work being done while validating the importance of standards in research.
You’re right though that it’s disappointing how many responses seem to address only the flaws in modern science and not acknowledge the strength of the scientific process. I think a big part of it does come down to how scientific findings are interpreted and reported to the public, and even further an all-too-human misunderstanding of epistemic limitations. Our cultures should spend more time educating people about the limits of knowledge and fact, how they are constrained by other flawed systems, etc. That would be a half-decent start, if we could only fix the entire reporting problem too.
bananabenana@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Hasn’t read the article methods: cOrReLaTiOn dOeSn’t eQuAl cAuSaTiOn
Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 9 months ago
All my literal this
whalebiologist@lemmy.world 9 months ago
this is the way doggo puppers, hecking upboats to the left
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Correlation doesn’t imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing ‘look over there’.
faintbeep@lemm.ee 9 months ago
There’s a generation of internet debate guys who seem convinced that correlation disproves causation
Maggoty@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Yeah but also just publishing correlation is a shitty practice. That’s supposed to be a hint to look deeper, not the end conclusion.
callouscomic@lemm.ee 9 months ago
herp doesn’t imply derp
HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
Dunning Kruger curve. The people who know the least about a topic speak the most confidently about it.
velvetThunder@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
Don’t think it’s exactly Dunning Kruger. We all think about the curve of gathered knowledge and perceived knowledge.
But they didn’t even start to gather knowledge, they just respond with something that sounds truthful and fits their world view in order to feel better without doing anything.
But hey maybe that’s just my Dunning Kruger talking.
Hadriscus@lemm.ee 9 months ago
I see this name everywhere these days. I think… I’m having a Baader-Meinhof about Dunning-Kruger
TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Nice we’re keeping the Reddit tradition of just repeating “Dunning Kruger Dunning Kruger Dunning Kruger” every time we see disagreement
spujb@lemmy.cafe 9 months ago
guy on lemmy “this was already obvious, why don’t they try studying something actually useful”
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 9 months ago
This, but to some degree, unironically. If studies aren’t reproducible (or deemed worthy of reproduction) then there’s definitely a disconnect between the folks handing out research assignments and the folks engineering applicable solutions to scientific problems.
That goes two ways. You could be a guy who successfully formulates a mathematical model to support the existence of Neutrinos and face a funding board that has no interest in building a LHC. That’s arguably a problem of malinvestment within the scientific community. Or you could be a guy who successfully formulates a mathematical model for a new kind of mouse trap that’s 10% less efficient than traditional mouse traps. That’s more of a university research assignment problem.
spujb@lemmy.cafe 9 months ago
i think you bring up valid instances where this is fair.
but i think i’m speaking to the very obvious and important ones that are worthy of reproduction. like i’ve seen articles be like “these corporations are responsible for 99% of climate change” or something
and the comments will be like “duh we knew that”
which true, but not empirically. being able to cite data from actual research from professionals is so invaluable and far better than anecdotes or guesses.
that said, is there some way for a layperson like me to identify when research is not deemed worthy of reproduction? or is it a lost cause
KISSmyOS@feddit.de 9 months ago
The worst part is when that guy’s right.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Yup. They forgot that sometimes what’s actually happening in that one line is-
- Go to School for a Bachelor’s Degree
- Get 10 years working experience in specific field
- Watch researcher whose never stepped outside of a lab make assertion counter to real life.
- Call Shenanigans
- Watch the findings go nowhere
callouscomic@lemm.ee 9 months ago
To be fair, journal articles and scientific research in general have gotten to be pretty bullshit. Haven’t they studied this and proven the vast majority of published journal papers probably shouldn’t have been?
A couple easily Google examples of discussion regarding scientific publications likely being bullshit.
[journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371…](Why Most Published Research Findings Are False)
[www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03865-y](Surge in number of ‘extremely productive’ authors concerns scientists)
[www.universityworldnews.com/post-mobile.php?story…](Too much academic research is being published)
[www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03974-8](More than 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023 — a new record)
[science.org/…/whistleblowers-flagged-300-scientif…](Whistleblowers flagged 300 scientific papers for retraction. Many journals ghosted them)
[retractionwatch.com/…/top-10-most-highly-cited-re…](Top 10 most highly cited retracted papers)
And on and on. Publish or perish and general shitty culture in academia is why I quit phd and took my masters and left.
Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 9 months ago
I saw a clip on how kids out of uni don’t believe anything not peer reviewed; even intuitive observations in nature that otherwise undocumented or site specific observations that went against the grain.
Science is a way of thinking and observing, rather than papers, but papers are a good way to refine your thinking
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 9 months ago
In theory, a paper gives you a methodology that you can use to reproduce the findings. And a refusal to use papers to repeat findings (because shit costs money and nobody wants to publish iterative studies) means you end up with a bunch of novel findings that are never confirmed through repetition.
But the fact that nobody is bothering to repeat these studies also raises a question of what exactly is being researched. Certainly, the more useful scientific research efforts are about formulating applicable techniques. So they would need to be reproducible to have any functional value.
The fact that we’re not seeking to replicate studies suggests that we’re investing a ton of time in niche under-utilized fields. And that may be a problem of investigative research (we’re so focused on publishing that we don’t care what we’re actually studying) or a problem of applied sciences (we’re so focused on scaling up older methods to industrial scale that we’re leaving better methods of production on the cutting room floor).
But its definitely some kind of problem.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 9 months ago
TBF I’ve lost count of the number of times someone has cited some paper as a reference for the point they are trying to make and when I inspect the paper it has shitty “n”, the paper is written for an agenda (not sure what that’s called where I.e. a paper saying smoking is good for you/not harmful is paid for by the tobacco industry and written by tobacco industry scientists), or it might even just be straight up bullshit written to look like a legit paper.
Peer Review at least offers some barriers to the problems with papers, but it’s definitely not a panacea.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The problem is without peer reviewed papers it’s hard to credit that someone all the way around the world observed something.
In a perfect world nobody is lying and everyone has the scientific base education to understand how to report phenomena properly. But uhhh… Yeah.
duffman@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I’m guessing not all hypotheses receive the same interest or funding to begin with. Definitely seems to be a selection bias on what actually gets funded/studied. Even worse, when they withhold results they don’t like from being published.
niktemadur@lemmy.world 9 months ago
If after all that preparation, your pride can be pierced and wounded by one of myriad neckbeards or Karens on twatter, you might need let go a little bit.
TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Worst best shiitpost ever. Absolutely the truth.
Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 9 months ago
Are you the token boomer, or a toking boomer?
TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Former. I don’t touch the devil’s lettuce 🥬
byroon@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Sometimes it is bullshit arstechnica.com/…/scientists-aghast-at-bizarre-ai…
GiveMemes@jlai.lu 9 months ago
A better example is the Stanford prison experiment. Guy purposely put cruel bullies as the “guards” and more submissive participants as the “prisoners” to sway the study preemptively. Not to mention all the funky things people do with collected data. This isn’t to say that when somebody with no expertise in a field doesn’t understand a study that that study is bs tho, and I’ll admit this is a fine line to walk as many pseudoscientists and crackpot theorists are created this way.
EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Maybe stop studying cow dung.
Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 9 months ago
What about piles of dirt?
EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I’m not sure that’s not my area of expertise.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Guy on internet: “this study is flawed in the following ways [proceeds to list shit they thought of in 25 seconds that may in no way matter, but since they thought of it, it totally disqualifies any and all science which may not agree with the armchair brain farts]”
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
Maybe that guy was just one of the people who worked on one of the 19 other studies that didn’t publish because of the negative result
preasket@lemy.lol 9 months ago
You know, the guy on the internet might have also been doing stuff all that time
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 9 months ago
nah it’s fair in all my life I’ve never once done anything. I’ve not even logged onto the internet ever
GerPrimus@feddit.de 9 months ago
Solution: don’t give a fck on the brain farts of random people.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Fallenwout@lemmy.world 9 months ago
They forgot:
Lab gets subsidized by company xyz
Alter perception of data in favor of xyz
Publish article praising xyz, and dissolve them from negativity.
Guy on the internet: bullshit
baseless_discourse@mander.xyz 9 months ago
Yeap, that sounds like my reviewers :(
altima_neo@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
Why are they always so concerned with guy on Internet?
owen@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
Because most of the population is partly ‘guy on internet’
BruceTwarzen@kbin.social 9 months ago
My dad has a friend who is like 65. I lives quite isolated. He's not dumb or anything at all, but he only talks to maybe 6 people and 4 of them are alcoholics and almost as sheltered as he is. The other day i went by because my dad asked me to help him.bwe talked for a bit and he said his knee is fucked but don't want t o do anything about it. I just shrugged and said that everything involving knee or hip surgery is scary. Hell, every surgery is pretty scary. Somehow the conversation (obviously) pivot towards covid. And he said he'll never get another vaccine in his life, because it was a plot from the higher ups, covid is made to kill people but it didn't kill enough. What struck me the most was he kinda saw that i didn't cared abd disagreed, so he quickly said: it's not just me, many people are saying it. Yeah sure, but i also know the people you hang out with who are "saying it" and who have "theories".
That is the guy on the internet, who doesn't even has the internet.
MBM@lemmings.world 9 months ago
It makes it impossible to actually discuss research online
SkabySkalywag@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The only bullshit I see is the 3 years for a PhD. How the hell did you pull that off;)
Random_internet_user@lemmy.today 9 months ago
Lol had the same experiance with a guy called stamets . He didn’t believe i was a psychologist because “i wrote like a teenager” like english isn’t my first language bruh i am tring here alright just cut me some slack . And then the mod went and deleted my post because i was “harrasing” people to be fair to the mod i was but so was they like i bet the stamet kid could never speak my first language like i speak english .
frunch@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Cool, so what’s your point?
Random_internet_user@lemmy.today 9 months ago
My point being this is what the meme being about 🤦 and frankly i don’t care what you think i shared my experience because this is lemmy and that is what it is for.
OpenStars@startrek.website 9 months ago
Okay but setting aside the details of the truth about language, having a degree should not give you or anyone carte blanche (definition: “complete freedom to act as one wishes or thinks best”) to harass strangers on the internet. I know nothing of the incident you referred to, only what you said here. Also btw I did not down-vote you.
Regardless of whether a mod is a literal child or not, that is the “role” that they have stepped up to fulfill - to be a curator of whatever community, or instance, or whatever - and should that not deserve at least a modicum of respect? i.e., if you stepped up to fulfill that role for your own community, wouldn’t you want people to respect you in turn? From your words, you obviously do, so why not offer it preemptively?
Especially as a psychologist: you better than most people know that you get what you give, especially when dealing with children.
They likely were saying that the truth of whether you were a psychologist or not was irrelevant, what matters was you breaking the rules of that community - b/c at some point, if truth is functionally indistinguishable from a lie, then does it matter, practically speaking?
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this food for thought:-).
Random_internet_user@lemmy.today 9 months ago
Hmm i have thought about it and asked tge mod to give stamet a similar warning too but he just ghosted me
systemglitch@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I find humour in the “clear peer review” part. I’ll take that with a grain of salt.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 9 months ago
Obligatory Stewart Lee clip: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzOv14fA-BI
JoShmoe@ani.social 9 months ago
Its hard to trust self-validation
themeatbridge@lemmy.world 9 months ago
And next on Fox News, we will hear from the experts both sides of the issue, the researchers and the internet jackass.
fluxion@lemmy.world 9 months ago
“the jackass researchers and the internet expert”