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I downvoted this and I wanted to say why. It reads to me like a (perhaps well-researched) ad-hominem attack. Rather than speaking to the points raised by the post, you attempt to undermine the person who posted it.

I'm not undermining him at all, I'm simply sharing the broader context behind him resigning, which he omitted from his post. Even though he may not have been academically successful, it looks like he's got the street smarts necessary to make it in the real world, which you definitely can't say for many of the postdocs trapped in academia. And having seen some of the utterly ignorant comments people make online (including on HN) and in person about the biomedical sciences, we could use more people who both understand the science and can communicate it to the broader public.

It reads to me not so much as an ad hominem as an explanation of why he sounds so bitter towards academia. "He's only had one second author pub" is, almost unequivocally, a statement that he hasn't been academically successful. Maybe it's because he's not good at science, maybe he's not good at gaming the system around science, but something is off. Without hearing him talk about his work in something like a seminar (and being fairly familiar with his specialty, which I am not), it's really hard to say. I won't argue that the publishing system is perfect, but in my experience, it's really not "corrupted" in any meaningful sense of the word, and that good work will find a venue (even if not a glam journal).

I think really the point that the GP is raising is that, protestations to the contrary aside, the OP really is bitter. Maybe they are truly disillusioned by the system around science, but such a critique does hold more weight coming from someone who has done well.

I think that it's fair to analyse the author's success or lack thereof, because he relies on this as part of his argument, e.g.

My friends have also pointed out that I should not be "discouraged" by the difficulties faced as a scientist, that I should continue to "fight." Again, they are wrong; discouragements due to failures have never kept me down. I have never been afraid of failures and of retrying, and retrying again; my scientific successes are what discouraged me, because I know how they were obtained

I will still publish my book, The Revolutionary Phenotype, which contains an important novel theory on the emergence of life

The author's argument rests on both his success in academia in spite of its unfairness, but even more importantly, it relies on his claims to have found more fruitful pursuits outside academia. I don't think anyone really considers how personally fulfilling these pursuits to be to be an important issue, but rather whether he is actually correct that these pursuits are more valuable to society than academia.

Actually, you're ignoring the author. He said that his publication successes drove him away from the system:

    I have never been afraid of failures and of retrying, and retrying again;
    my scientific successes are what discouraged me, because I know how they
    were obtained.

    My most important scientific articles were accepted in major journals
    because the editors had a favorable prejudice toward me or my co-authors;
    because I was insuring that I had a discussion with them before I submitted;
    or because the reviewers they chose happened to be close colleagues.

You presume that he wouldn't "air dirty laundry" if he got a tenure-track position. But this ignores what he just said! Every academic success he achieved made him discouraged and want to leave. You aren't listening to him.

Why do you call this "dirty laundry"? He addresses that too:

    Some of my best friends at Duke have told me that I sounded "bitter" when I
    expressed these concerns. I insure you that I am not and that I am writing
    these lines with the nonchalance and bliss of a man who has found other ways
    to be happy and to satisfy his own scientific curiosity.

You aren't listening to him.

Look, every time an academic leaves, the existing academics try to point out his lack of career success. It makes it easier for you to dismiss him.

But that train of thought is flawed. By simple logic, the honest participants in corrupt systems WILL fail to succeed. These are the people to listen to! The honest scientists, with sound arguments, and poor publication records.

> You aren't listening to him.

That's right, rather than taking his words at face value, I investigated the facts that he omitted from his narrative. They tell a slightly different story.

None of that means that I don't share his opinions about the state of academic science.

I love new information, but your narrative conflicts with the existing facts:

     - He is not bitter
     - He did not leave because of failure

Now it appears you aren't listening to me, because I've had to write this twice.

That's not factual evidence, that's a subjective narrative that he's constructed, one which the factual evidence contradicts. The one who actually isn't listening in this situation is you, because I've also had to state this twice.

Feelings are not subjective narratives; especially if you're a neuroscientist. They are physiological, measurable, and observable.

When the author says he does not feel bitter, it is an account on his physiological state. Are you calling him a liar?

When the author says he felt discouraged after success, that is a report on an empirical phenomenon. Do you believe he is lying?

If you think he's lying, then you don't trust him. Maybe you don't trust him because you only trust people who publish a lot. Shame on you.

> Feelings are not subjective narratives; especially if you're a neuroscientist. They are physiological, measurable, and observable.

Ah yes, because his post consisted of statistically rigorous measurements of his mental state to back up his statements, rather than a polemic against the nature of the academic system. Now, in which figure in his post did you see a plot of those measurements of his feelings, again? I'm having a little difficulty locating it.

> When the author says he felt discouraged after success, that is a report on an empirical phenomenon. Do you believe he is lying?

He does not have significant academic success to speak of, so his statement doesn't make logical sense. That's all I'm saying. Resorting to strawmen like claiming I believe he's lying or that I don't trust him detracts from the credibility of your argument.

Those "facts" are provided by the narrator himself. Unless you have some kind of psychic bond with the narrator, or can argue a priori why the phenomenon of "unreliable narrator" simply does not apply here, then these facts don't really address w1ntermute's line of argument.

Interesting how "bitter" is important. Is it academia's codeword for unprofessionalism? A claim that someone lacks objectivity because their meatbody generated emotion along with reason?

(Was Newton any less of a scientist for often being "bitter"?)

Perhaps I may bring some enlightenment here, I'm JF, the guy who wrote the article, and I do have psychic access to my own mind.

Everything is true in what both of you are saying. The original claim that my postdoc was ending anyway is true. But I did not fail to get enough publications to continue. I would have had opportunities to be employed and finish many more papers (in fact I was begged to choose to do so), but refused.

The fact that I have decided to synchronize my leave of academia with the ending of my postdoc, however, does not change what I express on my Facebook post, which was genuine. I am not bitter and I do not consider myself an unsuccessful scientist at all. In my country and in many universities, I see people being hired at a professor position with a C.V. much less populated than mine; so the option was certainly not out. On top of it, if I hadn't had the intent to leave, I certainly could have used my data in the last year to get anywhere from 1 to 4 more publications. I have handed all my data to students in the lab and chose to refuse to continue working on it despite a request from my PI (I actually made a joke and said that I could continue academia if he paid me $50,000 per month).

None of you are wrong; one just has to be careful with interpretations. Thanks for the person who defended the actual reading of my text rather than presumptuous extrapolations.

I think he is a rebellious entrepreneur who found himself confined in a space that does not align with who he is. I have been in his shoe and can clearly see why he chose to write that. He could have quietly vanished and worked as a 'research assistant' or some low level job at a biotech company (cuz he doesn't have the relevant work experience) or perhaps (like a friend of mine with 4 publications) in a janitorial wholesale place. But he is a fighter and I wish him the best in whatever journey he is going to embark on.

As a post doc, it becomes extremely hard to switch career and this guy is struggling to make sense of his life, especially now that he is going to be a father.

circRNA guys who posted on HN, should hire him.

From Pubmed, it appears that since 2007, he published 6 papers in one lab (likely his Ph.D. lab), including a first author in PNAS, and 4 papers in a second lab since 2013, including the Nat. Neurosci. paper you cite, where he is one of 3 authors.

It isn't a terrible publication record. One would have to know the significance of what he did publish in order to judge properly.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Gariepy%20JF[auth]

> 4 papers in a second lab since 2013

Out of those 4 papers in his postdoc lab, two are reviews[0,1] and one is a peer commentary[2], so only the second-author paper I linked before counts as original research.

Similarly, one of his (three) first-author publications from his PhD lab is also a review[3]. He does have two first-author publications from that lab, including one in PNAS[4], but neither of them seem to have been cited that much. In any case, you can't coast on your PhD publication record once you've been a postdoc for several years.

0: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12315/abstra...

1: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnins.2014.00...

2: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag...

3: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21111208

4: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/2/E84.long

There are only 3 authors on the Nat. Neurosci. paper, so he likely spent a large amount of his time working on this project. So it would be a bit unfair to compare his output in that lab to that of the first author of the same paper.

Metrics are fine and all, but rarely tell the full picture. Not that I know what the full picture really looks like in this case...

The Nat. Neurosci. paper lists author contributions at the bottom (Gariépy is J.F.G).

> S.W.C.C and M.L.P. designed the research and wrote the paper. S.W.C.C. and J.F.G. performed the research and S.W.C.C analyzed the data.

Quite. He performed the research, but it doesn't indicate whether he spent 2 years doing mostly this, or did just one of the experiments over a few weeks... Similarly for the first author.

I am sure his reason for leaving academia is multi-faceted. His publication record (it's not that bad really. Maybe not competitive enough for a tenure track position) and his other scientific communication activities probably are part of it. But I don't think it detracts from his complaints about academia.

> I am sure his reason for leaving academia is multi-faceted.

Oh, absolutely. Another reason that I didn't include in my OP is that he got his Green Card on August 3rd[0], which probably opened up a lot of options that he didn't have before, at least if he wanted to stay in the country. Many postdocs do not have the luxury of a Green Card and its attendant freedom.

0: https://www.facebook.com/jfgariepyneuro/posts/45540339129802...

Or, hoping that his YouTube and authorial notoriety will pay for his ramen noodles after he ragequits.

There is a charitable way of looking at the same data.

Given that he's quitting academia to become a stay-at-home dad (along with his YouTube/book endeavors), it's highly likely that his wife has a more remunerative profession than he does, and that that reality also figured into his decision. I doubt that affording basic necessities will be a concern of his.

You can say that. But, he's still right.

Not the OP, but of course he's right. On the other hand, there is bit of a different between one of the princes of the kingdom abdicating his title while leaving the kingdom and a common person leaving the kingdom.

Grant writing is a very painful form of writing and I have relatives that have made good money by being good at it[1]. I do believe it would be tough to do research and put the time in to be an acceptable grant writer. Something has got to give.

1) for those writing grant to certain government agencies, yeah, there is an old-boys/girls-club and using an "out" word in your grant is a killer (I've drank a lot of beer over the evolution of the word 'empowerment'). One tip my aunt told me is to volunteer to be a grant reader in DC. You see what everyone else is writing, know why things got accepted, and meet the people in charge.

>Grant writing is a very painful form of writing and I have relatives that have made good money by being good at it[1]. I do believe it would be tough to do research and put the time in to be an acceptable grant writer. Something has got to give.

I have tenured professor relatives and the thing that usually "gives" is the time spent on the actual research. From what I can see they spend a little time teaching, a little time managing grad students, and a lot of time grubbing for grants. I don't consider them scientists at all - they're middle managers.

It's an enormous waste of talent.