Elite Underproduction
I disagree with the article&#x27;s premises and conclusions, my perspective is that of a physicist who also knows many lapsed physicists.<p>The premise seems wrong in that he disagrees with the elite overproduction thesis, but the professions he lists are &quot; lawyers, MBA holders,...&quot; and later to finance. But these are the professions likely to be zero-sum. So to me the article really is &quot;I agree with the elite overproduction thesis, I just don&#x27;t think it applies to physics&quot;.<p>OK lets talk about that then.<p>If there is something that&#x27;s gone wrong with pushing forward the boundaries of our knowledge it isn&#x27;t a lack of bodies producing the standard unit of scientific knowledge: &quot;the peer-reviewed publication&quot;. These have grown exponentially. I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;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&#x27;s a pretty different article.  Personally, I&#x27;m skeptical more NSF funding would help.<p>I do agree with this part:<p><pre><code>   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.
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But this research is in a academic setting, and there <i>is</i> definitely, unambiguously, an overproduction of physics PhDs relative to academic positions available.  Letting more new students in the door wouldn&#x27;t help anyone!