Nature editorial: Do scientists really need a PhD?

This article is worth reading, updating based on the evidence if appropriate, and then discussing if you have something to say.

Saying "This article is worth reading" is unhelpful. Would you post a link to it if you didn't consider it worth reading? "Update based on the evidence if appropriate" and "discuss if you have something to say" is like suggesting to read this web page only when your computer is turned on and your eyes are open.

Interesting data, no real analysis here or by nature. It deserves to be linked to, but not as a post.

Nature article (may be behind a paywall).

Nature is "creating a debate" which is a technique creationists use.

The article does not claim to be "creating a debate", so why the quotes?

Given that the current consensus in the West is that scientists do need to get Ph.D.s, to declare your own view to the contrary as beyond debate, to liken the conventional view to creationism, to invite people not to assess the article, but to agree with your view of it, to give no evidence bearing on the matter -- what are you trying to do, see how many errors you can compress into how few words?

First para of the article at the link, block quoted, would have made a more fruitful introduction than just the title plus "read the article".

What's the convention on making a top level post to link to something vs posting in the open thread?

The most recent top level post for linking was TED Talks: Daniel Kahneman and that one at least had a paragraph worth of non-link material. Other links with comparable thematic relevance have been posted in the open threads.

It seems to me that a PhD is mainly about doing research under somebody else's guidance, while doing some extra courses on the side. If you can accomplish the same research without the bureaucratic hassles involved in a PhD, win-win.

This article no content. It reads like the author saw one example (few PhDs on Chinese genomic sequencing project), thought, "hey, I can write a column on this!", and was off to the races.

The sad thing is that there might be something there if you were willing to do the analysis that the author didn't. Otherwise it's just open-thread material.

• How famous is the university you attend?
• How much government funding is available for research in your field?

If you either go to a famous school (Harvard, MIT, Oxford, Stanford, U Chicago, etc.), or study a field with so much research money that even people who didn't go to famous schools can get some of it (biology, earth science), then getting a PhD is helpful.

If neither is the case, a PhD might not be helpful to you.

It's not even on-topic...