Special cases are just that, special cases. Sure, there are lots of PhDs working outside their degree field. But the reality is that most employers hiring someone fresh out of school are going to too look at what that person did in school, both in terms of the degree field and the dissertation. Companies generally don't pay PhD salaries to new graduates for aptitude. They pay for somebody who is highly educated in the desired discipline and who can hit the ground running. If you don't believe that, just look at a bunch of PhD-level job postings. They don't say: Candidate should have an aptitude for, and ability to learn, statistical analysis". They say something more like: Candidate should have extensive experience in xxx analysis as applied to yyy systems. If someone is many years out of school and can show the requisite experience they might get the job. But even then they could easily lose out to someone with similar experience and PhD in the desired field.

So, yes you can switch fields. Lots of people do. But if you have a PhD in math, you can expect to have an uphill battle convincing people you have PhD-level expertise in biology. You're probably going to have to provide a lot more evidence than the guy with the PhD in biology.

That might be true at the bachelor level, but at the PhD level people hire you for your specialized expertise based on your degree. For example, no brokerage house is going to hire a biology PhD to do statistical analysis research. They're going to hire someone with a PhD in math/statistics. It might be somewhat different if you are going to work for a pharmaceutical or other biology-related company. But in general, don't expect to get a degree in biology and then get job offers from companies looking for a PhD statistician. In fact, I would suggest that you view the corporate PhD hiring process as being quite similar to the faculty hiring process.

A PhD is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, employers immediately assume you are mature, intelligent, and highly-motivated. On the flip side, they are generally not willing to pay PhD salaries to someone outside their field of expertise. Put yourself in the employer's shoes. Why would an employer pay PhD rates for someone who doesn't have a PhD in the required discipline.

I don't know what country you're from, but in the U.S. file sharing does not fit the legal definition of stealing. Moreover, simple not-for-profit file sharing is not a criminal act. I know, I know, the propaganda commercials say otherwise. They're lying. So, to your comment, file sharing does not make one a criminal. It merely exposes one to civil liability.

By comparison, breach of contract also exposes one to civil liability. As every first year law student knows, the law encourages breach of contract in cases where the breach is economically efficient. It would be interesting to analyze file sharing under the same logic. File sharing is economically efficient for the sharer since the expected economic advantage is likely greater than the expected loss (civil damages weighted by the probability of getting caught).

Again, I am only speaking for U.S. law. It is different in other countries.

Exactly.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka” but “That’s funny...”
—Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)

Actually, I did not benefit from it. It was created after I graduated. You should have picked a better example. Like DoE. I disagree with RP on this one. Some of the their DoE research efforts are worth the money and eliminating them would be a huge mistake.

The point you appear to be missing is that we must scale down government spending. We're on a wild drunken orgy of spending and our kid are going to be stuck with the hangover. We're spending money we don't have and we must make some painful cuts. Many of the programs that will be cut are good and worthy. We just can't afford them.

Ron Paul is on the right track. Unfortunately, I don't see any chance he'll get elected. The U.S. is like an alcoholic that hasn't hit bottom yet. We're going to have to go through a lot more pain before we're ready for rehab.

To continue your point. TFA says: "psychopaths often use cause-and-effect descriptors"

So do scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.

Yes, it's pretty interesting. It's not a simple mutation. The relatively harmless soil bacteria picked up a plasmid (sort of like picking up a viral infection) and dropped a gene. If I remember right, it also rearranged the ordering of several genes on the chromosome. Together, these changes made the bacteria harmful. Calling the plasmid a virus is not technically correct, but it's a decent analogy. A plasmid is a piece of DNA (usually a loop) that "infects" a bacteria. It's not replicated through exactly the same process as the chromosome when a bacteria divides. But, there are processes that cause the plasmid to replicate so that after division both of the resulting cells are "infected" with the plasmid. The plasmid codes for various proteins that help make the bacteria harmful.

I bet the guy who modded you down works for XYZ Corp.

"Boeing knows its stuff on crew rating - its spaceflight pedigree stretches back to the Apollo moonshot capsules." Do they? All the folks that worked on Apollo and the Shuttle are probably long gone. Nobody in the U.S. has designed a new man-rated space vehicle in 30 years. Does anybody even know what it takes to man-rate a vehicle these days. Back in the day there was a can-do attitude about space travel and a willingness to accept certain risks. I'm not sure that's true anymore. I'm not trying to be flip, and I do not mean this as a knock on Boeing. I'm just concerned. It's one thing to talk and to create budgets based on the perceived rules and requirements. But I wonder if anybody is going to be able to complete the process and get the required signatures in this political climate. I know SpaceX is on the path, but they're a long way from completion. I suppose SpaceX has a political advantage here. If things go bad, congress and NASA don't have to take the blame. They can point fingers at SpaceX and claim they were misled.