Comment Re:We don't need so many PhDs. (Score 1) 56
More pressure to get results generally gets more results, yes.
And some fraction of those results won't be good ones, true.
BUT - the whole way science is set up is self correcting, so the bad results... just plain don't work. So you won't ever be harmed, by, say, getting the wrong diagnosis from a Theranos machine. Because it just doesn't work. Instead, people will have egg on their faces, get fired, waste money. (hey wait, wasn't Theranos a business side venture not academia? Surely that must make it immune to
But: more research means more results overall, some fraction of which is good, so, more overall good work out there, more useful stuff for humanity.
Not mentioned elsewhere in this thread: the fact that grad students do much of the actual research work out there. They're motivated, learning, and make the whole process go (and then go on to be the next generation of scientists, both inside and outside of academia). Fewer students directly scales to less research output. Research output, in the exact modern sense of the phrase we're talking about, is why we're not still living in the 1940's. The Unabomber is sad about that. Why are so many slashdotters?