I disagree with the article's premises and conclusions, my perspective is that of a physicist who also knows many lapsed physicists.
The premise seems wrong in that he disagrees with the elite overproduction thesis, but the professions he lists are " lawyers, MBA holders,..." and later to finance. But these are the professions likely to be zero-sum. So to me the article really is "I agree with the elite overproduction thesis, I just don't think it applies to physics".
OK lets talk about that then.
If there is something that's gone wrong with pushing forward the boundaries of our knowledge it isn't a lack of bodies producing the standard unit of scientific knowledge: "the peer-reviewed publication". These have grown exponentially. I don't think I've seen anyone even argue the rate of knowledge increase is growing commensurately. It *might* be the case that new knowledge requires exponentially more people looking for it but that's a pretty different article. Personally, I'm skeptical more NSF funding would help.
I do agree with this part:
Our apparatus of scientific education, especially mathematics education, is deeply flawed. It takes too long to bring young people to the research front, and it produces a false view of what doing science is really like.
But this research is in a academic setting, and there
is definitely, unambiguously, an overproduction of physics PhDs relative to academic positions available. Letting more new students in the door wouldn't help anyone!
The premise seems wrong in that he disagrees with the elite overproduction thesis, but the professions he lists are " lawyers, MBA holders,..." and later to finance. But these are the professions likely to be zero-sum. So to me the article really is "I agree with the elite overproduction thesis, I just don't think it applies to physics".
OK lets talk about that then.
If there is something that's gone wrong with pushing forward the boundaries of our knowledge it isn't a lack of bodies producing the standard unit of scientific knowledge: "the peer-reviewed publication". These have grown exponentially. I don't think I've seen anyone even argue the rate of knowledge increase is growing commensurately. It *might* be the case that new knowledge requires exponentially more people looking for it but that's a pretty different article. Personally, I'm skeptical more NSF funding would help.
I do agree with this part:
But this research is in a academic setting, and there is definitely, unambiguously, an overproduction of physics PhDs relative to academic positions available. Letting more new students in the door wouldn't help anyone!