Peter Higgs: I wouldn't be productive enough for today's academic system

[n2doc]

Peter Higgs, the British physicist who gave his name to the Higgs boson, believes no university would employ him in today's academic system because he would not be considered "productive" enough.

The emeritus professor at Edinburgh University, who says he has never sent an email, browsed the internet or even made a mobile phone call, published fewer than 10 papers after his groundbreaking work, which identified the mechanism by which subatomic material acquires mass, was published in 1964.

He doubts a similar breakthrough could be achieved in today's academic culture, because of the expectations on academics to collaborate and keep churning out papers. He said: "It's difficult to imagine how I would ever have enough peace and quiet in the present sort of climate to do what I did in 1964."

Speaking to the Guardian en route to Stockholm to receive the 2013 Nobel prize for science, Higgs, 84, said he would almost certainly have been sacked had he not been nominated for the Nobel in 1980.

Edinburgh University's authorities then took the view, he later learned, that he "might get a Nobel prize – and if he doesn't we can always get rid of him".

more

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-boson-academic-system

[BainsBane]

1. It's the same in the humanities

The pressure to publish quickly at even minor universities is greater than it used to be at Research 1 schools.

[CherokeeDem]

3. My cousin and her husband are both PhDs...

She in political science, and her husband in Creative Writing/Literature. They teach at a small university and she was just telling me how hard they had to work just to keep up with the publishing requirements for their contracts. She said it was too much.....

[mike_c]

2. 'struth....

eom

[Galileo126]

4. True that

I got out of the scientific publishing fiasco a few years ago. The quality of the content/research has severely gone downhill as people are forced to write more and more journal papers of little consequence. Claims of being "the first" has approached ridiculous levels (at least in astronomy/astrophysics):

"We were the first to observe this star..."

"We were the first to observe this star, with THIS telescope..."

"We were the first to observe this star, with this telescope, wearing red shoes..."

"We were the first to observe this star, with this telescope, wearing red shoes, chewing bubble gum..."

Ugh.

[Laelth]

5. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[MisterP]

6. yup--you can't get a job with a degree in the humanities OR in the sciences

leaving...

[caraher]

7. Good stuff

I'm glad he also hates the "God particle" moniker.

I'm fortunate not to have to publish. It's perhaps unsurprising how high the ratio of bad papers to good research can be, when every career incentive is to work to the "minimum publishable unit" of new results rather than to study something in depth.