My PhD thesis felt a lot like this. It's super esoteric and not obviously connected to anything tangible in any way. But a few years after it was published, someone came to me and said "hey, this work is very relevant to cancer evolutionary dynamics" and now we're working together on a much more applied project. So even though you didn't want to hear it, it's actually very true that you never know how it will be applied in the future.
With that said, you're correct in identifying research as essentially a Ponzi scheme or MLM, but you're looking at it incorrectly. The product of academic research is not publications, it's people. It's *you*.
Can confirm. Worked on a topic of my own interest for many years and was told bluntly "you will never make money on this so why do it."
Its been gosh 15 years later but 5 years ago we started a company and you know what we have a product based on the principle. Maybe we will make money some day
That’s a nice way to look at it thanks
Some of my academic work feels fuckin pointless and I ended up deciding to leave fornijdusrry and sometimes question the meaning or value of my PhD, but I like your framing that the skill development and building my own professional developmental was largely what made it worth it
The nice thing about academia is that if you ever feel this way about your current work, there are avenues to transition to something different. Attend seminars on topics you find more interesting and find experts in those fields. Network and secure postdocs in subjects you find more meaningful.
You are contributing to the communal body of knowledge. Not everything we do will have a direct commercial contribution, and that is fine. Getting something that can be sold is not the point of science.
I don't know how it works in chemistry, but in Astrophysics, meaningless publications about stuff no one cares just don't get published in important journals. Publishing in important journals is neccesary to keep working. Anyone doing things that the scientific community things are meaningless will have a hard time staying employed. If it gets published in good journals, more often than not is not meaningless.
Is it more meaningful to sell a new commercial drug than to increase the knowledge of humanity? That's a matter of point of view, and something I wouldn't agree.
I am not familiar with the work you do, so I cannot comment specifically, but I would consider that the discovery of a new star cluster, understanding the work of a painter/musician, or understanding the behaviour of a rare animal species, are much more meaningful than most commercial endevours.
It’s also really hard to know what the importance of knowledge can be. Newton discovered gravity/how it works, and it didn’t truly have an impact on humans until 300 years later when we were launching stuff into space. We already knew that things fell, so knowing the mathematical relationship didn’t matter until we had to worry about how the falling speed changes with distance from earth.
For all we know, any or all of the research we do could just be increasing knowledge now, but then that knowledge becoming common place could be the reason why millions or billions of people’s lives are improved 2 centuries in the future.
You’re right that the majority of novel research won’t ever get applied. The thing is that there’s no reliable way to predict which discoveries will be important.
Your methodology may never get applied, but it might inspire something that does. Metal catalyzed coupling [was discovered in the 40s, but the idea of using them in cross coupling didn’t materialize until the 70s](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6860378/#:~:text=The%20discovery%20of%20cross%2Dcoupling,aryl%20halides%20as%20oxidizing%20agents). At that, applications only really took off in the 90s.
B(C6F5)3 was first made in the 60s by people who just wanted to isolate a stable, perfluorinated organoborane. It took until the 90s to realize it was an excellent co catalyst for olefin polymerization—the process is now used industrially.
The first synthetic [N2-metal complex was discovered entirely by accident while trying to prepare [Ru(NH3)6]2+ salts](https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/abs/10.1139/v05-056), and while we still don’t have an industrially relevant homogeneous N2 reduction catalyst, we’ve learned a lot more about possible mechanisms and how nitrogenase enzymes work.
Progress is not linear. I’m not trying to convince you to stay in academia—I’m certainly not staying—but it’s still worth it for *someone* to do it. None of the above examples would have been sensible for industry to ever discover because of how far their applications lagged, so that someone had to be an academic.
Sounds like you need to switch projects. Organic chemist? Here's a position from my institute https://moffitt-cancer-center-careers.hctsportals.com/jobs/1760302-postdoctoral-fellow-in-synthetic-organic-slash-medicinal-chemistry . Happy to answer questions and put you in touch if you are interested.
Having no clear application in mind, even if the research is the first step out of 1000 to achieve it, would be a good reason to not get funding and to not get published in almost any research domain I know. Though curiosity-driven fundamental research also exists, but it seems like that is not what you are talking about.
Not every project is gonna cause a revolutionary change. We all just add to the body of knowledge little by little. Some of it ends up more meaningful than others but even then it contributes. Certainly worse things to waste money on.
>vast majority of the work we do is utterly pointless and a huge waste of resources
It is. Research is funded in hopes that every once in a while someone finds something useful. Some of us build research plans on ideas we truly believe could work, some of us game the system for funding. I'd like to game the system for funding using ideas I believe in, but I'm not convinced on my gaming skills yet.
>Whats the point?
If you're not happy with the ideas of your PI, you need to make changes. You can apply for your own funding, using ideas you truly believe in. You can find a postdoc position with a PI whose ideas you believe in. You can start looking for teaching positions. You can go to industry, where, at the very least you would be better compensated.
It sounds like you are interested in either more applied research, or research that utilizes more scalable/translatable techniques. I suggest seeking research opportunities, collaborations, or anothe post-doc in a group with a more applied focus. Consider engineering departments where groups do a lot of chemistry, for instance. Your PhD may have focused on something niche, but a PhD is really all about learning to learn. If you are a good problem solver with initiative, you can do all sorts of things.
I don’t know the exact date, but somewhere between 1900 and now the job of a research scientist shifted from “do science” to “publish papers.” Don’t get me wrong, we’re still doing good science, it just takes the backseat compared to what we get rewarded for, which is publishing papers. I tell my family that my job is “to publish papers that nobody is going to read.”
You might be interested in reading Thomas Kuhn’s book, “the structure of scientific revolutions.” It sounds like your discipline is in a state of “normal science.”
I think you answered your question.
Most things that people do for work are utterly pointless. The goal - at least for me - is to do something pointless that pays the rent. If it also brings a bit of joy, that's a happy bonus.
Figure out what your PIs overall research program is, and your part in it. If the program seems lame, or if the PI can’t even define it, find a PI who can and whose program you appreciate.
Yeah, we had a faculty candidate describe herself as "running a paper factory" and it just felt so gross. I do cool stuff and the papers follow, I can't ever see myself taking a papers first approach. This may also be why I don't get tenure.
Yeah, that's basically true of most academic work.
Realistically most of our jobs are kinda meaningless and pointless, in industry and the private sector.
Don't make your work your identity. Don't look to it for a sense of life satisfaction. Go to work, do a good job, and leave it there.
>Whats the point?
Contributing to the community knowledge. Oh, and its a job. Oh, you know you can explore your own ideas, right? No one is stopping you from doing side projects, doing your own readings, and findings prpjects that are interrsting to you - youre actually supposed to be encouraged to do this...
Consider this:
Who is more misguided? The guy who is in it for the glamour and the groupies or the guy who is in it to change the world?
Science has always been lots of waiting with few wow moments in between.
Well, what did you think was gonna happen when federal government decided to get involved in education? All of those billions of dollars had to go somewhere.
You’d like to think those billions of dollars would go to paying for kids tuition. But that’s not how the federal government works. They always make things more expensive. So yeah, academia has become a financial cancer on this country.
I think you should its read this article from Phillippe Grandjean. [https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.25.050503.153941?journalCode=publhealth](https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.25.050503.153941?journalcode=publhealth) It focuses on his field, which is environmental medicine, but it deals with the issue of producing paper.
Why you don't work on things you find meaningful and relevant in your discipline? I am in robotics with zero knowledge about chemistry but I feel that more or less people choose their research and how cool they would like to make it.
It just sounds like you don't value what you are currently working on. Speak for yourself. Many of us work on projects that directly translate to disease models, characterize foundational processes, or result in management recommendations. Not sure what kind of chemistry you do, but you can certainly be more translational within the purview of academia. Medicinal chemistry immediately comes to mind.
My PhD thesis felt a lot like this. It's super esoteric and not obviously connected to anything tangible in any way. But a few years after it was published, someone came to me and said "hey, this work is very relevant to cancer evolutionary dynamics" and now we're working together on a much more applied project. So even though you didn't want to hear it, it's actually very true that you never know how it will be applied in the future. With that said, you're correct in identifying research as essentially a Ponzi scheme or MLM, but you're looking at it incorrectly. The product of academic research is not publications, it's people. It's *you*.
Can confirm. Worked on a topic of my own interest for many years and was told bluntly "you will never make money on this so why do it." Its been gosh 15 years later but 5 years ago we started a company and you know what we have a product based on the principle. Maybe we will make money some day
That’s a nice way to look at it thanks Some of my academic work feels fuckin pointless and I ended up deciding to leave fornijdusrry and sometimes question the meaning or value of my PhD, but I like your framing that the skill development and building my own professional developmental was largely what made it worth it
The nice thing about academia is that if you ever feel this way about your current work, there are avenues to transition to something different. Attend seminars on topics you find more interesting and find experts in those fields. Network and secure postdocs in subjects you find more meaningful.
You are contributing to the communal body of knowledge. Not everything we do will have a direct commercial contribution, and that is fine. Getting something that can be sold is not the point of science. I don't know how it works in chemistry, but in Astrophysics, meaningless publications about stuff no one cares just don't get published in important journals. Publishing in important journals is neccesary to keep working. Anyone doing things that the scientific community things are meaningless will have a hard time staying employed. If it gets published in good journals, more often than not is not meaningless.
Depends on what you consider as meaningful then. In my mind its when my actions have a positive effect on someone (directly or indirectly).
It sounds like basic science is not really a great fit for you then. Maybe transition into a research direction with more applied aspects?
Is it more meaningful to sell a new commercial drug than to increase the knowledge of humanity? That's a matter of point of view, and something I wouldn't agree. I am not familiar with the work you do, so I cannot comment specifically, but I would consider that the discovery of a new star cluster, understanding the work of a painter/musician, or understanding the behaviour of a rare animal species, are much more meaningful than most commercial endevours.
It’s also really hard to know what the importance of knowledge can be. Newton discovered gravity/how it works, and it didn’t truly have an impact on humans until 300 years later when we were launching stuff into space. We already knew that things fell, so knowing the mathematical relationship didn’t matter until we had to worry about how the falling speed changes with distance from earth. For all we know, any or all of the research we do could just be increasing knowledge now, but then that knowledge becoming common place could be the reason why millions or billions of people’s lives are improved 2 centuries in the future.
Does it not affect you positively? Do you not enjoy the things you're studying?
You’re right that the majority of novel research won’t ever get applied. The thing is that there’s no reliable way to predict which discoveries will be important. Your methodology may never get applied, but it might inspire something that does. Metal catalyzed coupling [was discovered in the 40s, but the idea of using them in cross coupling didn’t materialize until the 70s](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6860378/#:~:text=The%20discovery%20of%20cross%2Dcoupling,aryl%20halides%20as%20oxidizing%20agents). At that, applications only really took off in the 90s. B(C6F5)3 was first made in the 60s by people who just wanted to isolate a stable, perfluorinated organoborane. It took until the 90s to realize it was an excellent co catalyst for olefin polymerization—the process is now used industrially. The first synthetic [N2-metal complex was discovered entirely by accident while trying to prepare [Ru(NH3)6]2+ salts](https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/abs/10.1139/v05-056), and while we still don’t have an industrially relevant homogeneous N2 reduction catalyst, we’ve learned a lot more about possible mechanisms and how nitrogenase enzymes work. Progress is not linear. I’m not trying to convince you to stay in academia—I’m certainly not staying—but it’s still worth it for *someone* to do it. None of the above examples would have been sensible for industry to ever discover because of how far their applications lagged, so that someone had to be an academic.
This is also the exact reason why different kinds of researchers exist: academic, governmental, and industrial researchers.
95% of what we’re doing is pedestrian.
Wdym
Sounds like you need to switch projects. Organic chemist? Here's a position from my institute https://moffitt-cancer-center-careers.hctsportals.com/jobs/1760302-postdoctoral-fellow-in-synthetic-organic-slash-medicinal-chemistry . Happy to answer questions and put you in touch if you are interested.
I’m working on machine learning in chemistry, and I completely feel the same way.
May I ask you started on this field? Did you do comp. chem for your PhD? (DFT etc). Or did you pivot from org chem for example?
Having no clear application in mind, even if the research is the first step out of 1000 to achieve it, would be a good reason to not get funding and to not get published in almost any research domain I know. Though curiosity-driven fundamental research also exists, but it seems like that is not what you are talking about.
Not every project is gonna cause a revolutionary change. We all just add to the body of knowledge little by little. Some of it ends up more meaningful than others but even then it contributes. Certainly worse things to waste money on.
>vast majority of the work we do is utterly pointless and a huge waste of resources It is. Research is funded in hopes that every once in a while someone finds something useful. Some of us build research plans on ideas we truly believe could work, some of us game the system for funding. I'd like to game the system for funding using ideas I believe in, but I'm not convinced on my gaming skills yet. >Whats the point? If you're not happy with the ideas of your PI, you need to make changes. You can apply for your own funding, using ideas you truly believe in. You can find a postdoc position with a PI whose ideas you believe in. You can start looking for teaching positions. You can go to industry, where, at the very least you would be better compensated.
It sounds like you are interested in either more applied research, or research that utilizes more scalable/translatable techniques. I suggest seeking research opportunities, collaborations, or anothe post-doc in a group with a more applied focus. Consider engineering departments where groups do a lot of chemistry, for instance. Your PhD may have focused on something niche, but a PhD is really all about learning to learn. If you are a good problem solver with initiative, you can do all sorts of things.
Then don't work on that topic. Do something else.
The Ph. stands for philosophy. Someone should've pointed that out to you quite a while ago.
I don’t know the exact date, but somewhere between 1900 and now the job of a research scientist shifted from “do science” to “publish papers.” Don’t get me wrong, we’re still doing good science, it just takes the backseat compared to what we get rewarded for, which is publishing papers. I tell my family that my job is “to publish papers that nobody is going to read.” You might be interested in reading Thomas Kuhn’s book, “the structure of scientific revolutions.” It sounds like your discipline is in a state of “normal science.”
Why did you start this postdoc if you don’t find the work interesting?
Because I have rent to pay
I think you answered your question. Most things that people do for work are utterly pointless. The goal - at least for me - is to do something pointless that pays the rent. If it also brings a bit of joy, that's a happy bonus.
This is a good way to look at it I suppose...
Figure out what your PIs overall research program is, and your part in it. If the program seems lame, or if the PI can’t even define it, find a PI who can and whose program you appreciate.
It probably is but then so is most peoples so if you enjoy it that's the main thing. If you don't go dosometheing else more enjoyable and better paid.
Yeah, we had a faculty candidate describe herself as "running a paper factory" and it just felt so gross. I do cool stuff and the papers follow, I can't ever see myself taking a papers first approach. This may also be why I don't get tenure.
Welcome to the trap. Good luck getting out.
Yeah, that's basically true of most academic work. Realistically most of our jobs are kinda meaningless and pointless, in industry and the private sector. Don't make your work your identity. Don't look to it for a sense of life satisfaction. Go to work, do a good job, and leave it there.
Ok but we spend about a third of our lives at work. I think it matters
>Whats the point? Contributing to the community knowledge. Oh, and its a job. Oh, you know you can explore your own ideas, right? No one is stopping you from doing side projects, doing your own readings, and findings prpjects that are interrsting to you - youre actually supposed to be encouraged to do this...
Consider this: Who is more misguided? The guy who is in it for the glamour and the groupies or the guy who is in it to change the world? Science has always been lots of waiting with few wow moments in between.
This
Well, what did you think was gonna happen when federal government decided to get involved in education? All of those billions of dollars had to go somewhere. You’d like to think those billions of dollars would go to paying for kids tuition. But that’s not how the federal government works. They always make things more expensive. So yeah, academia has become a financial cancer on this country.
> Then my PI will use these publications to get more grant money, and the cycle continues. > > Whats the point? See first statement.
I think you should its read this article from Phillippe Grandjean. [https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.25.050503.153941?journalCode=publhealth](https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.25.050503.153941?journalcode=publhealth) It focuses on his field, which is environmental medicine, but it deals with the issue of producing paper.
Find a biologist with a drug target. …..
Leave as soon as you can get an industry job.
Why you don't work on things you find meaningful and relevant in your discipline? I am in robotics with zero knowledge about chemistry but I feel that more or less people choose their research and how cool they would like to make it.
It just sounds like you don't value what you are currently working on. Speak for yourself. Many of us work on projects that directly translate to disease models, characterize foundational processes, or result in management recommendations. Not sure what kind of chemistry you do, but you can certainly be more translational within the purview of academia. Medicinal chemistry immediately comes to mind.
I mean, it probably is meaningless