The Greasy Pole

Abstract

Modern biological science has some resemblance to life on the western front during World War I. It keeps going by pouring vast masses of cheap cannon fodder into the no-man’s-land of frontline research. Many fall, but some survive and become Ph.D. graduates. The Ph.D., or doctor of philosophy degree, is the entry qualification for professional scientists and is something you do after you have finished your B.Sc. In the United States it takes at least five years to get a Ph.D., and in continental Europe probably no less. In Britain we specialise in a sort of cut price Ph.D. that takes just three years. But those three years are spent entirely in the lab, working on a research project. There is no time for any more formal course work, so British scientists tend to be rather less well informed than their American counterparts. Despite this, Britain seems to be able to go on producing at least some good scientists. So perhaps being well informed doesn’t matter as much as we like to think.