[abetusk]

I think the professional sciences has, for a long time, been a social game of building ones career but it does feel like it's metastasized into something that's swallowed academia.

From the first article in the series [0]:

> Insiders ... understand that a research paper serves ... in increasing importance ... Currency, An advertisement, Brand marketing ... in contrast to what outsiders .. believe, which is ... to share a novel discovery with the world in a detailed report.

I can believe it's absolutely true. And yikes.

Other than the brutal contempt, TFA looks like pretty good advice.

[0] https://maxwellforbes.com/posts/your-paper-is-an-ad/

[keiferski]

A secondary and less visible consequence of this is that many people don’t go into academia in the first place because they are put off by the publishing system. And so many people that would otherwise be contributing to human knowledge are working in an office somewhere helping a random company sell more widgets.

[ke88y]

Contributing to humanity’s knowledge is MUCH easier in the private sector than in academia.

In the private sector you can choose your patrons and your dissemination mechanism. Many, many scientists publish papers, publish code, give talks, write blogs, and otherwise distribute technical details about their work product.

In academia the Federal Government is your only serious patron and you must disseminate in academic journals/conferences, which generally do a piss poor job of providing incentives for either doing good work or communicating well about that work.

Any time I hire a junior PhD I have to UNDO a ton of academic writing/provlem-solving propaganda and reteach both common sense and normal writing style.

The harsh truth is that private sector scientists tend to do better science and disseminate it in more useful and lasting ways. They are paid better for it.

The academic scientists who are up to private sector standards tend to have diverse funding mechanisms and therefore rely far less heavily on prestige publication for their labs revenue stream. But most professors must publish papers because they are unable to do good work and/or communicate the value of that work to anyone other than their inner circle of friends (who sit on the grant review panels or take stints at federal agencies).

[mitthrowaway2]

Every private-sector company I've worked for has had me sign an NDA saying that I can only disseminate knowledge within that company.

[rcxdude]

Without permission, yeah. But many companies do publish scientific papers. In both worlds, there's usually a game of publishing enough to give people confidence that the results are good, without actually giving away enough details to actually lose any competitive advantage (this is perhaps even more so in academia). In basically every field there will be things that everyone talks about and things that no-one talks about, and the latter is often even more important (but usually more boring know-how type things).

[ke88y]

Also, to state the ultra-obvious given our venue: you can find patrons outside of mega companies that require NDAs.

[mitthrowaway2]

NDAs are standard even in small businesses. Any company developing technology will require them for technical staff because not doing so can cause the company to lose protection for its IP, even if none of the staff actually leak any technical secrets. Patent applications can be invalidated on the ground that the technology had been disclosed to individuals outside of an NDA, and trade secret protections forfeited for not taking reasonable precautions.

I have only worked with one business that did not require NDAs, and that was because it was built around an open-source sharing philosophy. Every other client, even very small organic-growth businesses and pre-seed startups, required an NDA, and if they hadn't I would have advised them that they should.

[GJim]

> In academia the Federal Government is your only serious patron

Are you are aware there is a world outside the USA?

[ke88y]

Sorry, you’re totally correct!

It’s important to point out that US professors are sometimes able to go without public patronage, but that this is very much an anomaly.

The US private sector funds A LOT of R&D relative to other countries, and the US attracts an outsized amount of FDI targeted at R&D.

As a result, in the USA there are occasionally rare instances where professors can mostly fund labs without government patronage.

Scientists in other counties are even more desperate for public patronage (and its associated political games) than US scientists

[jltsiren]

I think it's actually the opposite. American universities receive less research funding from external private sources than universities in the European countries I'm familiar with. The difference is probably due to the culture of charitable donations. Europe has a tradition of private foundations funding arts and sciences, while Americans make donations to universities.

In 2021, academic R&D spending in the US was ~$90 billion (https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb202326/funding-sources-of-acad...). Out of that, 55% came from the federal government, 25% from the institutions themselves, 6% from nonprofits, 6% from businesses, 5% from state and local governments, and 3% from other sources. The share of businesses looks normal, while the share of nonprofits seems low.

[ke88y]

You’re making a comparison then quoting only one side of that comparison, which is deeply confusing.

I’m pretty damn sure you’re wrong about Europe on a relative basis. The percentages in most of Europe are MUCH higher. Eg Germany is closer to 80% than 50% gov funded.

(Earmarked gifts to an endowment with some level of direction/advice vs a foundation is a real cultural and tax policy difference, but the end effect is what matters and that’s not as simple as you’re suggesting.)

And not to be too flippant, but the question about the world outside of America applies also to the world outside the West ;)

[ModernMech]

And yet, show me any private sector funded research and most of the citations will be academic research funded by public dollars.

[ke88y]

Only when they are disseminating in an academic venue. Most non-university research dissemination happens outside of academic venues.

And even then usually only because it’s expected, not because it was actually useful. (And no, it’s not because academics are more ethical about acknowledging the shoulders they stand on. Academics rarely cite the chip designs, software libraries, lab instruments, instruction documents, training materials, etc. What “counts” as something that deserves a citation mostly boils down to “did you publish it in a venue controlled by other academics”, not “how important was this to enabling your contributions?”)

The fortunate thing about the private sector is that you don’t have to spend years of your life shaping opinion on citation ethics, because people are using your stuff instead of half-interestedly saying that they may’ve skimmed the intro to a pdf describing your stuff. And if people use your stuff and get value from it you can usually extract some of the value that creates. Which means you don’t need vanity metrics to convince some government agency to throw you some coin.

[ModernMech]

I don't find this true at all in my experience, you and I apparently have very different perspectives when it comes to the research we consume. The things which you say are not cited absolutely should be, and if they are not that's a problem. In the papers I read, I'm often encountering citations to specific versions of libraries, specific industry created operating systems, industry created programming languages of which there are many, specific commercial lab equipment which were used. My friend in grad school used to do research on x86 machine instructions and he had a giant instruction manual on his desk at all times, which was cited thoroughly in his work. This is all part of doing good research.

Either way my point stands. Since they are citing the research as foundational in their papers, then we should take them at their word. The idea you put forth that they're only doing so as a matter of show puts a terrible light on them if true. They shouldn't be citing research as foundational if it really isn't. So I will choose not to believe your characterization, because I think very highly of the industry researchers I know, and that doesn't seem like something they would do.

[ke88y]

First of all: we’re pretty far off topic now and I don’t think this particular point is at all relevant to the main thesis of this thread.

That said, even if we accept the general premise of your post, which I don’t, you’re still drawing the wrong conclusion.

To wit: citing something does not imply that the cited thing is “foundational” to the work from which it is cited. One can cite work for any number of reasons. (Admittedly, citation behavior did change with the rise of bibliomaniacs, but of course that further bolsters my overall point, so I’m not sure the daylight on this point does you any favors.)

You identified some counter-examples that miss the point because they’re unrepresentative, unresponsive, and irrelevant.

Unrepresentative because we are discussing literature in aggregate and this behavior is common.

Unresponsive because, in aggregate, inessential academic writing is systematically over-cited in academic writing and essential inputs of other types are systematically under-cited in academic writing. This is true of all academic writing; it’s a bias of the medium and of the medium’s standard bearers.

And irrelevant because there is nothing a priori or essentially nefarious about the above, on its own!

Academics beat ideas and lines of inquiry deep into the ground. Crucially, they do so by pumping out ridiculous quantities of PDFs. For every little variation there is a paper. Outside of academia this isn’t done. Eg: you cite Package X, great! But do you cite the 17 different PRs most relevant to your work, many of which are at least a papers worth or work? No. That’s culturally off. But for the corresponding thinly sliced papers that’s what you have to do.

Conclusion: academic work dominates the citation list because of publication and citation culture, not because academic work dominates the set of enabling contributions.

I do trust that you genuinely do experience the world as you describe here, but I think you’re a fish in water and that Upton Sinclair quote about paychecks comes to mind.

[eru]

Figuring out how to improve industrial processes also contributes to human knowledge.

[tomsmeding]

It does, but it would contribute more if said knowledge was published openly for others to learn from.

Yes, I am aware of the irony of paywalled academic publications.

[whatshisface]

This is an article about ML research, and the emphasis on branding and marketing your paper wouldn't fly in any of the fields people think of as scientific. Could you imagine someone saying, "be sure that the graphic for the molecule in figure 1 is 3D and has bright colors?"

The most disturbing thing about it is the way advice to forget about science and optimize for the process is mixed with standard tips for good communication. It shows that the community is so far gone that they don't see the difference.

If anyone needs a point of reference, just look at an algorithms and data structures journal to see what life is like with a typical rather than extreme level of problems.

[0xfffafaCrash]

Strongly disagree here. While I haven’t published e.g. particle physics work, I have authored/coauthored a number of peer-reviewed papers in other topics generally considered hard science (and published in ”high impact factor” scientific journals). This article and series is just as accurate about how ”Science 2” works outside of ML in my experiences. Branding and marketing is a very major factor in everything from grant funding to research publishing in academia.

[whatshisface]

There's a used car sales line somewhere and you just have to be careful to not cross it. Yes, there are rewards to good communication but if it becomes the sole purpose (communicating "read me") that's too far.

[chairhairair]

> Could you imagine someone saying, "be sure that the graphic for the molecule in figure 1 is 3D and has bright colors?"

Chemists are extremely brand-aware regarding their figures.

In synthetic chemistry many chemists could guess the author based just on the color scheme of the paper's figures.

For instance, look at the consistency here: https://macmillan.princeton.edu/publications/

And it comes with rewards! The above lab is synonymous with several popular techniques (one, organocatalysis, which garnered a Nobel prize) - the association would be much less strong if the lab hadn't kept a consistent brand over so many years.

[mbforbes]

Oh my, those figures are gorgeous! Thank you for sharing.

[rrr_oh_man]

> This is an article about ML research, and the emphasis on branding and marketing your paper wouldn't fly in any of the fields people think of as scientific

The number of accepted papers is absolutely currency and measure of worth in academia.

[Fomite]

Interestingly, one of the pieces of advice, about having a punchy title, is a double edged sword. There's some data suggesting papers with "clever" titles have an easier time getting published, but accumulate fewer lifetime citations.

Both of which are currency.

[eru]

I suspect there's a selection bias here.

Silly example: if I ever find out a prove saying that "P=NP", that will also be the title of my paper. No cleverness required to grab attention.

If I have a more pedestrian result, I'll think up some clever title.

[spookie]

As someone doing a literature review I can safely concur with this. Fancy titles often do not include the most obvious terms of what you are searching for, leading to fewer results from your query.

[karmakurtisaani]

The reason could be that clever titles add "novelty", but not much substance. Publishable, but not citable.

[Majromax]

> The reason could be that clever titles add "novelty", but not much substance.

Another reason might be that clever titles stand out as bold claims, working counter to the common practice of academic humility. If a paper seems to be downplaying its own significance, then why should a casual reader (or reviewer, at first impression) give it the benefit of the doubt?

That's not to say that papers should over-claim, and I suspect that doing so might lead to a harsh counter-reaction from reviewers who feel like they've been set up to have their time wasted. Nonetheless, "project confidence" might be good practice in academia as well as one's social life.

[whatshisface]

That's true as a zeroth-order approximation, but even sticking to trivially quantified values your citation count is more important (that's maybe first-order), and on the level of your reputation the question you need to ask is, "will people feel like my work actually benefits them?"

[pazimzadeh]

It would be great if he’d shared the actual reviewer comments.

> Could you imagine someone saying, "be sure that the graphic for the molecule in figure 1 is 3D and has bright colors?"

I doubt the reviewers asked for that, but yes that kind of thing happens all the time prior to publishing and there’s nothing wrong with it. If it reduces the amount of time it takes to understand the paper then do it..

[Fomite]

I have definitely said that people can't resist a network diagram, and "people love a good map", and I'm not in ML research. There are things that appeal to people.

This tends to not manifest as "We need one of these" but "If we have one of these, lets be sure to use it."

[whatshisface]

People like witty epigraphs underneath chapter titles too, and that's great. Now imagine saying, "the difference between this paper getting accepted or rejected is the presence or absence of a network diagram..."

[intended]

The difference between getting fatigued reading one paper vs one that makes it easier to see the point you are making.

Evaluators are human.

[auggierose]

Yes. That is indeed the problem, and might be resolved sooner than later.

[Fomite]

I mean, at one point I was presenting some research next to someone with a network diagram, a map, and a phylogenetic tree and my comment was "That's going to win best poster" and I was right.

[chneu]

my spouse works in academia and publishes regularly.

This article is spot on. what are you talking about? have you ever published a research paper and gone through peer review?

[whatshisface]

I think a lot of people are reading the presentation advice and thinking "yeah, I work hard for good presentation too," without realizing that the reason content hasn't even been mentioned is that the author really is describing ML accurately.

I think it's ultimately due to a lack of theory, which creates the expectation that the results from trying an idea will be a random draw. From that point, you get the behaviors of trying as much as possible and taking each attempt as a fixed object to then go try and get over the threshold.