[dekhn]

Saying that many PhDs you worked with are idiots says more about you, than it does about the PhDs.

PhD process is only one path, but it has a number of useful attributes, such as being very close to the active state of the art research, feedback from experts in the field, handholding through the paper and grant process, and introduction to a large social network. Those are all very hard to do with home labs and biohacking. Things like journal clubs with other grad students often help people learn how to evaluate the literature with the appropriate context. Independent work is important, but teamwork and learning from others is far more important.

I've worked with some very smart people (famous software engineers with long track records of innovation) that wanted to help with bioinformatics, and they did do some cool things, but their lack of deep context (the sort of thing you can get from a PhD program or working in the field for many years) ultimately led to problems such as premature optimization for the wrong distribution of data.

Nonetheless, I have see independents who came to the field with no background, absorbed the ground knowledge, and made major contributions, but that's absurdly rare compared to PhDs.

[mindcrime]

Saying that most PhDs you worked with are idiots

The person you are replying to did not say that.

[goatlover]

But they did say "many of them are idiots", which is similar and rather arrogant. I don't trust people who claim their colleagues and classmates are idiots. Dunning-Kruger effect and hubris being what they are.

[mindcrime]

But they did say "many of them are idiots", which is similar

Similar, yes. But, at least to my mind, there's a pretty big jump from "many" to "most". But maybe that's just me. shrug

[xeromal]

Mot really, many still sounds like more than 50%. That's a huge claim

[blotter_paper]

Nope, we have a separate word for that: most.

[haolez]

If the performance of those PhDs were extremely subpar to the point of hindering the research altogether, what sentence would you use to describe this situation?

[dekhn]

I think that's what they said, slightly paraphrased: "I've published papers in bio and worked with many PhDs. Many of them were idiots"

I have no interest in arguing about the interpretation of that sentence.

[mindcrime]

I have no interest in arguing about the interpretation of that sentence.

Then don't "interpret" anything. The person who wrote that sentence explicitly said "many" and not "most". Barring some evidence to the contrary, the sensible thing to do is take it literally, no interpretation necessary.

[dekhn]

I changed the text from "most" to "many" to more closely match. This seems like a fairly pedantic thing to complain about, not really contributing to the substance of my argument.