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Comment by tibbon | Hacker News Reader

In most (all?) science fields, without a PhD you're stuck pretty close to the bottom. Its impossible to be anything much above lab tech/lab manager without a PhD in biological sciences. Some people want to work in the private sector for pharma companies for example...

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This is exactly why I bailed out on my Chemistry career and switched to coding. In the lab I would always be a second class citizen without a PhD, no matter how experienced or capable I became.

Programming is much more meritocratic.

Heh heh. When I was in high school we spent a class titrating. At the end of the class the teacher said "... and if you go into chemistry but don't get a PhD this is what you'll be doing most of the day." I think 45 students mentally crossed chemistry off their list of potential majors in that instant.

Many chem / bio labs treat programmers like gold. Being able to program would make you "god-class citizen" (with "second-class citizen" promotional opportunities).

Or you could be like Elon Musk :)

I guess engineering is a bit different, I don't think there are many working engineers with a Ph.D. There would be a few at NASA but even then most of the engineers would be at a Masters level.

Engineering isn't science. A sample size of 1 (spacecraft) is poor.

You can just go off and do some damn good scientific work and then publish. You don't really need permission to do science, if what you are doing is good work. The college environment just gives you time and space and environment in which to do that and a social cover for your interests. The only major downside to just looking into things in your own time is that many people seem to find it an extremely odd thing for someone to do, unless they are doing it within the confines of a suitably sanctioned institution.

Well, you do have the problem in most science fields (except the theoretical sciences) where it costs a lot of money to run experiments, so it's not just something you can do in your kitchen.

> Well, you do have the problem in most science fields (except the theoretical sciences) where it costs a lot of money to run experiments, so it's not just something you can do in your kitchen.

Are you certain? See http://openwetware.org/wiki/DIYbio/FAQ/News

This is very cool. I love to see the general trend of bigger and more expensive science being bucked here.

In general, though, we're still chasing the long tail of knowledge. Nobody's going to build a cutting-edge particle collider, space probe, or Inca ruin in their spare time.

Arguably microbiology is a lot more like computer science than other experimental sciences economically, at least in certain respects; for example, once you've got something interesting, you can probably execute a fairly cheap reproductive process and get a whole bunch more of it. (Well, this is cheap compared to reproducing a particle collider, at least.)

Fun to think about.

That's true, but when you start talking about reproduceable science instead of just tinkering, you need to be very careful about contamination, repeatability, etc. This is very difficult to achieve without expensive lab equipment (although part of that expense is due to economies of scale - if everyone started buying centrifuges and gram scales, maybe they wouldn't cost thousands of dollars).

I lived with one of the DIYBio co-founders. He was doing cool stuff, but it was more engineering and less science (see this: http://www.neatorama.com/2009/01/01/mad-scientists-are-actua...). It was more, "let's build something cool" (and often it was) than, "Let's spend the next 3 years rigorously going over data collection, write papers, submit to journals, etc to test a theory".

Doing research in biological sciences often involves millions of dollars of funding and just isn't something that can be circumvented. My girlfriend is currently pursuing a PhD in Neuroscience. Studying that brains of hundreds of animals isn't something that I'd want her doing in the kitchen.

you can raise funds on kickstarter and get it done

Has anyone ever done this with any level of success? I can't see the public getting overly excited (or understanding basic science research) enough to fund hundreds of thousands of $ in studies to understand the expression of a gene in a rat, or measure inflamation in one area of the brain.

You won't be able to publish any research involving humans unless you have met the ethics requirements of an institutional review board. Good luck doing that without university (or at least large, well-funded lab) association.

That doesn't work on so many levels. Funding is already tight in science. No one's going to give a large amount to an undergrad to start their own lab at home.

Learning from others is important, as is having a team to work together on hard problems. If your study requires something being done every hour for 72 hours straight, one person can't do that. Not everything can be automated.

Studying something that's controlled by the government and/or dangerous is impossible outside an academic environment. Getting plutonium and building your own nuclear reactor at home is generally frowned upon. Studying smallpox at home is generally frowned upon. Getting a DEA license for legal drug research is frowned upon. Conducting medical research on humans without an oversight board (and medical support, consent, etc) is generally frowned upon. Most animal supply places won't send hundreds of genetical engineered and bred mice to your apartment.

This isn't a slap against you, but its clear that while HN understands engineering well, they don't get science for the most part.

And by generally frowned upon, I think you mean illegal in most jurisdictions.

Yes, that too. I figure there's somewhere that these things are legal... but not many.

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