Hacker News with Generative AI: Academia

Retractions caused by honest mistakes are extremely stressful, say researchers (nature.com)
Most researchers whose papers are retracted owing to an honest mistake find the ordeal stressful, according to a survey of almost 100 authors1.
Science, Research, Academia, Stress, Retractions
6 points by bookofjoe 2 days ago | 0 comments
The Illustrated Guide to a PhD (might.net)
Every fall, I explain to a fresh batch of Ph.D. students what a Ph.D. is.
Academia, Education, Ph.D.
407 points by chii 6 days ago | 246 comments
A Return to Polymathy (2015) [pdf] (paulrcohen.github.io)
Polymathy, Philosophy, Academia, History
144 points by mirawelner 13 days ago | 73 comments
Two Turntables and a Microphone (2006) (goodfuzzysounds.com)
The shorter, funnier version of my dissertation
Music, Humor, Academia
63 points by mellosouls 14 days ago | 44 comments
Evolution journal editors resign en masse (arstechnica.com)
Over the holiday weekend, all but one member of the editorial board of Elsevier's Journal of Human Evolution (JHE) resigned "with heartfelt sadness and great regret," according to Retraction Watch, which helpfully provided an online PDF of the editors' full statement.
Science, Academia, Publishing, Resignations
4 points by signa11 18 days ago | 0 comments
Intolerable Genius: Berkeley's Most Controversial Nobel Laureate (2019) (alumni.berkeley.edu)
IN THE SUMMER OF 1984 the senior scientists of Cetus Corp., a Berkeley biotech company, found themselves in a bind. One of their employees, a promising young scientist named Kary Mullis, had dreamed up a technique to exponentially replicate tiny scraps of DNA. He called it polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and if it worked it would change the world and likely earn Cetus a mountain of money. The only problem was Mullis was an interpersonal wrecking ball.
Science, Biography, Controversy, Academia
22 points by oli5679 19 days ago | 24 comments
Evolution journal editors resign en masse to protest Elsevier changes (retractionwatch.com)
All but one member of the editorial board of the Journal of Human Evolution (JHE), an Elsevier title, have resigned, saying the “sustained actions of Elsevier are fundamentally incompatible with the ethos of the journal and preclude maintaining the quality and integrity fundamental to JHE’s success.” 
Science, Publishing, Academia, Open Access
106 points by panic 21 days ago | 31 comments
From Papyrus to Preprints (joinreboot.org)
Nearly every paper I come across is a preprint. We take it for granted now, but 33 years ago, arXiv—as we know it—emerged from the halls of Los Alamos National Laboratory, revolutionizing how we share research. I thought an exposé was long overdue, so here’s an attempt.
Science, Preprints, History, Academia, Research
6 points by folump 23 days ago | 0 comments
On the nature of computing science (1984) (cs.utexas.edu)
Now this summer school draws to a close, it seems appropriate to try to put its topic into some perspective
Computing Science, Academia, History
280 points by ColinWright 26 days ago | 110 comments
When I was lonely, I used to hate weekends (bubblic.app)
During the loneliest phase of my PhD, I used to dread the weekends.
Loneliness, Academia, Personal Experiences
5 points by jaybhum 28 days ago | 1 comments
Pseudonymity in Academic Publishing (11011110.github.io)
The January issue of the Notices of the AMS is out, and it includes a new article coauthored by me, as well as what look like interesting articles on machine-assisted proof by Terry Tao and on rational approximation by Lloyd Trefethen fils (better known as Nick). My article is about editing mathematics on Wikipedia, with the pretentious or maybe just silly name Princ-wiki-a Mathematica: Wikipedia Editing and Mathematics; it’s by Joel B. Lewis, Russ Woodroofe, XOR’easter, and myself.
Mathematics, Academia, Pseudonymity
41 points by 082349872349872 29 days ago | 12 comments
My Pal, the Ancient Philosopher (nautil.us)
To do philosophy, you don’t need expensive labs or equipment. You don’t need a huge team. You can do it all by yourself. The downside is that philosophers are often lonely. Reading in solitude while wrestling with your own thoughts is difficult. We do discuss and debate our ideas with others at conferences and symposia, but these peers, invaluable as they are, are bounded by many of the same constraints we are, living and thinking in our own brief historical moment.
Philosophy, Solitude, Academia
38 points by HR01 31 days ago | 8 comments
Noam Chomsky at 96 (theconversation.com)
Noam Chomsky, one of the world’s most famous and respected intellectuals, will be 96 years old on Dec. 7, 2024. For more than half a century, multitudes of people have read his works in a variety of languages, and many people have relied on his commentaries and interviews for insights about intellectual debates and current events.
Noam Chomsky, Intellectuals, Linguistics, Politics, Academia
3 points by lr0 31 days ago | 0 comments
Elon Musk is causing problems for the Royal Society (theguardian.com)
A leading scientist at the University of Oxford has resigned from the UK’s national academy of sciences over concerns about Elon Musk’s continuing fellowship.
Science, Academia, Elon Musk, Royal Society
13 points by jzox 31 days ago | 10 comments
My PhD advisor rewrote himself in bash (might.net)
The hardest part of advising Ph.D. students is teaching them how to write.
Programming Languages, Academia, Humor
43 points by signa11 35 days ago | 4 comments
My PhD advisor rewrote himself in bash (2010) (might.net)
The hardest part of advising Ph.D. students is teaching them how to write.
PhD, Programming, Bash, Academia, Humor
257 points by vismit2000 36 days ago | 104 comments
The "Elite Overproduction" Problem (arnoldkling.substack.com)
Yascha Mounk scrutinizes Peter Turchin’s idea “overproduction of elites.”
Politics, Sociology, Academia, History
6 points by paulpauper 38 days ago | 0 comments
The Underground University (aeon.co)
In 1986, my quiet life as a doctoral student in philosophy was punctuated by a trip to Brno in Czechoslovakia (as it then was), where I found myself in a high-speed, chicken-scattering taxi, chasing a bus before it reached the border. It was my small part in a larger story of philosophers’ derring-do during the Cold War.
Philosophy, Cold War, Czechoslovakia, History, Academia
23 points by Caiero 43 days ago | 4 comments
Curriculum Vitae of Donald E. Knuth [pdf] (www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu)
Computer Science, Academia, Biography
11 points by joebig 45 days ago | 1 comments
Imperfect Parfit (philosophersmag.com)
Philosophers tend to tolerate a high degree of personal strangeness in one another. More specifically, they tend not to worry – at least explicitly or on the record – about whether the weird philosophical beliefs and the weird non-philosophical actions of a colleague might have a common source.
Philosophy, Academia, Ethics
17 points by diodorus 52 days ago | 7 comments
Music as Language (2019) [pdf] (omelkonian.github.io)
Music, Language, Academia, Research
70 points by sargstuff 61 days ago | 17 comments
Steve Hsu (MSU) helping to look for Trump admin appointees in science (twitter.com)
Politics, Academia, Science
6 points by osnium123 61 days ago | 1 comments
Oxford accused of relying on young academics employed on gig-economy terms (theguardian.com)
Oxford University has been accused of relying on academics on “Deliveroo-style” and precarious fixed-term contracts to give the majority of its tutorials, after new research revealed just a third of lessons are taught by full-time professors.
Education, Employment, Academia, Gig Economy, UK
190 points by Michelangelo11 62 days ago | 115 comments
What to Do When Your Hypothesis Is Wrong? Publish (sciencefriday.com)
But what about the papers with negative results? If you’re a researcher, you know that you’re much more likely to disprove your hypothesis than validate it, but there aren’t a lot of incentives to go out and publish your failed experiments.
Science, Research, Publishing, Academia
17 points by Breadmaker 64 days ago | 0 comments
Graduate Degrees Are Overrated (lemire.me)
Though I have many brilliant graduate students, I love working with undergraduate students. And I am not at all sure that you should favor people with graduate degrees, given a choice. Many graduate students tend to favor abstraction over practical skills. They often have an idealized view of the world. Moreover, these students are often consumed by research projects, theses, or dissertations, and the publication of scientific articles, which limits their time for concrete actions.
Education, Higher Education, Skills, Academia
3 points by ibobev 66 days ago | 1 comments
Academic-style writing persists because it works (greyenlightenment.com)
Academic-style writing is characterized by defensive or hedging language, an abundance of citations, and being overly charitable to the opposing side by writing for the most skeptical reader in mind or anticipating objections. However, it’s criticized as being inauthentic or ambiguous. Or it reads as if the writer is prevaricating or beating around the bush instead of just saying what is on his or her mind. This can make the writing seem confusing or needlessly complex.
Writing Style, Academia, Communication, Language
10 points by paulpauper 68 days ago | 5 comments
The Median Researcher Problem (lesswrong.com)
Claim: memeticity in a scientific field is mostly determined, not by the most competent researchers in the field, but instead by roughly-median researchers. We’ll call this the “median researcher problem”.
Science, Research, Social Science, Psychology, Academia
30 points by surprisetalk 70 days ago | 20 comments
Yale prof solves part of math's 'Rosetta (news.yale.edu)
Sam Raskin has wrapped his head around a math problem so complex it took five academic studies — and more than 900 pages — to solve.
Mathematics, Academia, Research
12 points by dargscisyhp 74 days ago | 1 comments
Machines of Loving Grace (clunyjournal.com)
Last year, at a Panera-catered “new faculty appreciation” luncheon, the Dean of my college told me—as I folded my hands across my seven-months-pregnant belly—that I should look for long-term academic employment elsewhere.
Academia, Gender Bias, Discrimination
233 points by greenie_beans 74 days ago | 59 comments
One year after X: Embracing open science on Mastodon (rug.nl)
In October 2023, the University of Groningen Library (UB) made the decision to leave X (formerly Twitter) and fully transition to Mastodon, a decentralized, non-commercial social media platform.
Open Science, Social Media, Mastodon, Academia
12 points by ZacnyLos 76 days ago | 0 comments