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Comment by kaitai | Hacker News Reader

As I write this, there are just a small number of comments, all saying "there's no money in research" and "scientists are paid less than McDonald's burger flipper". It's like a whole section of disgruntled grad students who wanted to be professors. There is tons of money in science! People who "fail out" of or never wanted to pursue the stupid academic dream become active in patent law, become managers at pharma and biomed companies, oversee quality control at chemical firms, write documentation for medical devices, run labs, work as lab techs. These are all good jobs compared to the jobs the majority of Americans are qualified for.

Seems like HN has a very warped view, this view that "there's no money in research" means some poor kid is better off flipping burgers into her 50s than becoming a lab manager.

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I would warn your optimism however, my wife is a lab manager (performs research, publishes, ostensibly as involved in the science as any PHD) but I would by no stretch of the word say she makes "good money"; both of us made more back when we were service workers. The perception in her group is that the positions that pay even close to tech (some of the ones you list, manager at pharma company etc) are almost paramount if not more difficult to e.g. getting a manager position at google. If you're not top of the pile material, good fucking luck. (and you'll likely have some very high expectations to get there, PHD+extensive research the minima of, which again unlike tech, are less able to be fulfilled while making good money as well, and typically require more upfront investment)

I would say that in my experience the closer you get to science (or the further from money, perhaps?) the harder good money is to come by. (Left an academic tech position myself a while back; tripled my salary overnight)

Wages are higher in technology compared to the sciences because productivity is higher due to greater automation. The sciences may see wage increases in the future as research tools become more automated. Whether the skill sets remain the same is not so sure; manual wet lab work will always be inefficient compared to a programmer controlling an array of robotic lab devices.

> Whether the skill sets remain the same is not so sure; manual wet lab work will always be inefficient compared to a programmer controlling an array of robotic lab devices.

I've already seen this happening in certain labs. It can be an odd experience walking into an empty lab. In one particular bio lab, they employed one particularly talented tech who knew how to do experiments that weren't yet being done by robots. The other guys were all programmers or doing bioinformatics. They're all well-paid and getting papers in NEJM, Nature, Cell, etc. (I didn't get the job :-/ )

The efficiency gained by automation is available to all prospective tech workers; there must be another reason wages are higher in technology.

It's definitely true that getting the manager at pharma company type jobs are hard to get, and lab managers are not paid super well. But: a clinical research manager has an average salary of about $94k in the US, while web developer not otherwise specified has an average salary of about $66k in the US. Restaurant manager comes down to $37k on average, Bath & Body Works retail manager comes up to $54k. Glassdoor lists a bunch of lab manager jobs at $51k to $65k. The average salary for a black man in the US is about $35k and the average salary for a white man in the US is about $48k [1]. Every science-related job in the list is above the average salary for white, black, or hispanic men in the US, and certainly above average for women. Retail and food service fall on either side -- and which jobs are more likely to have health insurance?

What kind of jobs did you have experience with before lab manager? I'm curious.

[1] http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf

A few thoughts.

- you're comparing what seems to be highly skilled vs. more unskilled labor; (as well as more typically PHD requiring vs not) which if anything seems to support my point given that frankly the pays are similar enough. (at least compared to the delta you'd make using higher education to go into industry)

- clinical managers (general lab managers as well, fwiw) are actually far more to the administrative side than the experimental side so it does not seem surprising that it biases upwards compared to pure researchers.

Jobwise, for myself, I built solutions for an astrophysics research group, hers was in applied psychology for certain classes of severely impaired patients.

The comparison between skilled and more unskilled labor is intentional; the article was about training in science. Many posters seem to argue below that science training does not lead to better-paying jobs, and thus it is not important that poverty and social background are barriers to science training/doing science. A science degree in general requires more training than a business degree or a communications degree, and students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are disproportionately ending up in "general studies," communications, business, etc., which often lead to jobs like restaurant manager (and don't lead to admin jobs in science).

Maybe the difference between how I see it and what you're pointing out in your two points is that "failing out" or stepping out of pure science research into science industry/admin preserves or increases pay, while "failing out" or stepping out of business or communications leads mostly to unskilled jobs which pay poorly. The expected value of a job after a science degree is higher, because there are more good paths (even if some don't pay super-well).

> The comparison between skilled and more unskilled labor is intentional.

Don't you need to "condition" on aptitude and ability then? A person capable of getting into a decent PhD program would probably also be able to get into a solid medical or law program. At the undergrad level, that might mean a nursing degree (APRN or something) instead of a bachelors' in biology.

The science degree is not particularly lucrative at either level.

Also, I think you're flipping the causality around in other people's arguments: they seem to be claiming that pushing science degrees is not a particularly effective way of addressing poverty.

> There is tons of money in science!

Of course there is tons of money in science. But it does not go towards scientists.

Some of my friends have PhDs in oceanography. Most of them are working in the lab, cutting fish (sampling) for minimal wage.

They are not even permanent employees, but on sliding contract extended every 6 months. Every 4.5 years they have to take one year break, because after 5 years they would become permanent employees.

Half empty building they work in has price tag over 200M euro (30M would do). Institute has over 60% non scientific stuff (all permanent of course). For example 10% of people are in HR, my corporation had 0.5% people in HR.

And if you studied 10+ years to write documentation which only needs 3 years degree... That is lot of wasted time and money.

What you described, where the money is at, is commonly referred to as "industry" and yes it is "science" oriented but pursuit of profit definitely changes the dynamic away from academic pursuit of advancement of the human species that, more often than not, results in failed outcomes rather than something that can make money. Who are you to judge and deride the "stupid academic dream" from which all those industries have their genesis? The reason there are loud and worthwhile voices critical of what "business mentalities" have done to cheapen the profession and academic nature of research, and consistently "privitize" the results of partnerships done in academic settings. If the industry wasn't so "warped" as it is now, then maybe the view being shared here wouldn't reflect that. Going "Rah rah join the dick-pill-selling-company-brigade" is fine if that's what you want to do, but that's not really science with a capital S.

There are people in business trying to advance our species and there are people in academia trying to burnish their prestige, make money, and get a job you can't be fired from.

Well, the entire institution of business has an explicit profit motive and academia has an explicit knowledge motive, so while there may be misguided individuals in either pursuit, that doesn't sully the previous poster's point.

Academia's primary product is credentialing, not knowledge. If knowledge were the product they would bill for knowledge, but they don't, they bill for credentials.

Your attitude is the source of every problem with contemporary academia.

Full disclosure: I'm an academic, pursuing the "advancement of the human species"...

> work as lab techs

That job pays miserably relative to the education required, and it's usually incredibly dull. Do you like pipetting? How about washing test tubes?

>There is tons of money in science!

Yep, it goes to the cost of doing research, paying the CEO and VPs, marketing, etc. Industry positions pay vastly better than academia, but still quite poorly relative to the amount of work and expertise needed.

> People who "fail out" of or never wanted to pursue the stupid academic dream become active in patent law

Patent law is anti science.

If anything it helps prove the point. We all know science degrees lead to money. It's practicing science that perhaps is not as $

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