My year in blogging, 2011

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year. I thought I would post a link to my blogging statistics for 2011. Rather pathetic really, but I write this mainly for my own benefit. Having said that, I do quite enjoy getting comments so if anyone would like to make any, please feel free.

Distribution functions

A discussion at work made me decide to try and finish this post about distribution functions. Essentially I think we should put more effort into teaching people about distribution functions. The reason being – in my view at least – is that distribution functions provide much more information about something than any single number can.

An example of a distribution function is shown in the image below (I can’t remember where I got this so can’t give it an appropriate citation – apologies if it is yours). The figure could be showing the distribution of anything, but let’s imagine that it is the distribution of income. The x-axis would then be income (in pounds for example) and the y-axis would be number of people per income interval (per pound for example). It can’t simply be “number of people” on the y-axis as that doesn’t really make sense. Asking how many people have annual incomes of £16000 isn’t really a logical question (i.e., it’s possible that no one earns exactly £16000 per year). What would make more sense would be asking how many people have annual incomes between (for example) £16000 and £16500. If the y-axis is the number of people per pound interval, then to determine how many people have annual incomes between £16000 and £16001 you could simply read that off the distribution function graph. Determining how many earn between £16000 and £17000 would require determining the area under the graph in the interval between £16000 and £17000.

There are 3 things labelled on the graph, the mean, the median, and the mode. The mean is simply the average. Add up the total amount of money paid out to people in the form of income and divide by the number of people. The median is the salary which divides the population into two equal portions; i.e., half the population earn above the median and half earn below. The mode is the peak of the distribution and is essentially (since we’re talking about income distributions) the most likely income. The mean doesn’t really tell us anything about the income distribution, since it is largely independent of the distribution. It’s the same if one person earns all the money, or if it is divided equally between everyone. It might tell us something about how wealthy we are compared to another country, but doesn’t really tell us about how income is distributed in this country. The median is more useful because it tells us the middle salary. The larger the difference between the mean and the median, the more unequal the income is distributed. Having written some of this post, I’ve partly lost track of what I was trying to say but to a certain extent it’s a sense that it’s difficult to understand the how unequal income, for example, is distributed without some understanding of distribution functions.

Something else that really bugs me is the apparent grade inflation that’s taking place in the UK school system. Every year more people get As compared with the previous year and this is presented as a success. The problem I have is that it would seem that there must be a range of abilities for almost everything. If everyone in the world ran 100 metres as fast as they could, there would be a wide range of different times which you could plot as a distribution function. Similarly, if we consider mathematics, the abilities of those leaving school in a given year will vary. What the exam results are meant to do is reflect this variation in ability and, in a sense, should reflect reality. Of course, one could set an exam that most students would do very well at, by making it fairly easy, but what’s the point of that? We should, in my opinion at least, be setting an exam which produces results that reflect relative abilities. How can we tell who is particularly good at mathematics if more and more people get top grades? One might ask how this is done, but as far as I can tell, it’s fairly easy. I regularly set exams and generally the results are distributed in a fairly sensible way. Very few get above 90%. A reasonable number (10% of students for example) get between 70% and 90%. A large group get between 55% and 70%. A smaller number get between 40% and 55%, and some students get below 40% and are regarded as having failed. I can’t see that it would be difficult to set A-level (for examples) exams that allowed one to determine who was truly brilliant at something (grades above 90%), in the top 10% (grades between 75% and 90%), about average (grades between 60% and 75%), below average but competent (grades between 40% and 60%), largely incapable of carrying out such work (grades below 40%). This grade inflation is extremely damaging, in my opinion, as it reduces the amount of information that the exam results can tell us and suggests that these results no longer reflect reality.

Well, this post has become somewhat rambling and doesn’t really have a particularly clear message or motivation. But, what’s the point of blogging if you can’t simply write whatever you want, even if it doesn’t really make much sense to others.

Rutherford Fellowship reviewing

I’ve just finished reviewing a couple of Rutherford Fellowships. Obviously I can’t give any details. They were both good, but I suspect that the current round is going to be extremely competitive. One of the changes this year was that rather than having many reviewers each reviewing one proposal, there was a smaller pool of reviewers each reviewing a number of proposals. This seems quite a sensible change, partly because the reviewers can maybe get a better sense of the standard, but also because STFC contacted reviewers a while ago to be part of this pool, and so it feels a bit more like you’re formally part of the process and, hopefully, encourages reviewers to take this seriously.

What I found a little unfortunate about the review process (and this doesn’t just apply to the Rutherford Fellowships) is how much emphasis appears to be put on the “quality” and “suitability” of the candidate. I suspect I’m in a minority here, but my personal view is that one should review the proposal and it’s merits without necessarily considering the applicant. Once the quality of the proposal has been assessed, one can then assess whether or not the applicant is likely be able to do the work and, if so, do they also have a record of timely publications and papers that have been well received. Although I have never sat on a UK panel, my feeling is that the perceived quality of the candidate trumps any deficiencies in the proposal. I’m not suggesting that a poor proposal would get funded, but that a candidate perceived to be strong would get funded with an okay proposal over someone who wrote a fantastic proposal but is perceived to be not of as high a calibre.

Many would probably argue that funding strong candidates is ultimately what it is all about, and there is a lot of merit in this view. Funding those with a proven track record is pretty safe and it typically will produce good science. It does, however, feel a bit risk-free. We should, in my view at least, be aiming to fund excellent and potentially exciting science, and that will generally require taking some risks. Funding, for example, the person with the excellent proposal who hasn’t yet proven themselves over the person who has a good track record but didn’t write a particularly good proposal. I should acknowledge that I don’t really believe that the process doesn’t try very hard to get a decent balance, or that the panels simply chose those with the strongest track record. It is simply a sense (that without having sat on a panel I can’t really confirm) that the applicant’s track record plays a much more significant role in their likely success than I feel is appropriate.

STFC Consolidated Grants

The results of the first round of Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Consolidated grants are due to be released in the next few weeks and the second round of submissions are due early next year. For those not in the know, STFC used to have two types of grants, Standard Grants and Rolling Grants. Standard grants were typically for individual researchers requesting funding to support a postdoctoral researcher and to pay for some travel and some computing. Rolling grants were typically for a larger group of researchers. Generally it was expected that a Rolling grant had some kind of theme and there was an expectation that such grants would typically be renewed – hence being referred to as rolling – although not necessarily in full.

There were problems – in my opinion at least – with both funding styles. My problem with the Rolling grants was that they encouraged groups and departments to focus in a few areas, and they promoted inertia. You were rewarded if you kept doing what you’ve always done (or more correctly, the system didn’t really reward risk taking and it wasn’t easy to break in if you were trying to start something new). The problem with Standard grants was their inflexibility. They were typically for a single project that lasted for 3 years and provided funding for one postdoctoral researcher. Renewal was neither guaranteed nor likely, so the funded researcher would regularly leave before the 3 years was complete resulting in either a waste of a few months of funding or trying to hire someone on a short contract.

STFC has now decided on a single type of grant called a Consolidated Grant. The idea here is that everyone in particular area (Astronomy, Particle physics, Nuclear physics) within a given department are bundled into a single grant. Within this grant are a number of proposals requesting support for postdoctoral fellows, computing and travel. Unlike the previous Rolling grants, however, there doesn’t have to be an overriding theme and each proposal within the grant is assessed independently. In a sense it’s like combining the Rolling and Standard grants. One big grant made up of a bunch of smaller proposals. Each proposal is, in theory, assessed on it’s scientific merits but having a number of proposals bundled together provides flexibility. Given the current financial constraints, this may be a very sensible way to go. I do, however, have a number of reservations.

Firstly, a lot of the “refereeing” is done within each department. There is a limit as to how many cases can be included in each submission and so each department has to decide what to include. This may make sense to some, but it is likely that internal politics will play a huge and possibly negative role. How does a junior person fight a much more senior person within their own group. Once the grant is submitted, you’re also tied to it for the full three years. If your case was unsuccessful there’s no means for you to get funding within the UK for the next 3 years. Potentially extremely damaging if you’re mid-career. Admittedly, this was also true for Rolling grants and it is something I’ve never really liked. The cases are, in theory, meant to be assessed independently and, having spoken to some panel members, this does appear to be the case. However, my gut feeling is that some strategic aspects will influence the final outcome. I can’t really believe that if one group had all their cases ranked highly and another had very few, that they wouldn’t juggle it a little to balance the system. I suspect that this wouldn’t be explicit, but my guess is that some form of this will happen. I may be wrong though.

Another issue I have is how do you propose risky projects? Your group, who essentially decides what goes in, would probably rather play it safe. I was in a meeting where senior STFC staff were present and the explicit statement was that the flexibility of the Consolidated grant system meant you could take risks with your funding if you wished. However, how do you as an individual convince your colleagues to take the risk.

As I mentioned earlier, given the current financial position, the Consolidated grant system may be the most sensible option. However, the motivation for instituting this seems to be largely to reduce admin costs and to make the system simpler. Neither of these necessarily ensure that we fund excellent science. Given that the UK community is currently very good, we can almost guarantee funding excellence by default (there are far more excellent proposals than we can fund). We will probably fund excellent people and groups and some excellent people and groups will also not be funded. My concern is whether or not this is a funding style that will guarantee excellence in the long term. I certainly don’t feel that it is. Not many seem to agree though.

The NHS: A fantastic business for Britain?

In was reading an article in the Guardian about Circle Health taking over the running of Hinchingbrooke hospital. Personally I think this is very dangerous thing to do and, as far as I can tell, there’s no real evidence to suggest that private companies do a significantly better job at this kind of thing than the public sector. What has confused me is that this is reported as a £1 billion, ten-year deal. An earlier article had claimed that Hinchingbrooke hospital was projected to have a £5 million loss this year and revenues of £90 million. Their total debt would then be £40 million. Instead of giving £100 million a year to Circle Health, why not simply give £100 million a year to the existing trust. They appear to be able to run the hospital for £95 million a year, so in eight years will have paid of their debt and over then next two years would make a £10 million surplus. I appreciate that it is probably more complicated than this, but probably not by as much as might be expected.

What really got me wound up was David Cameron’s quote that he wanted the “NHS to be a fantastic business for Britain”. Quite how he expects this to be the case is beyond me. My gut feeling is that he thinks that if a private company gets involved and makes a profit, then that is good for Britain. I would argue that this, in itself, is generally not true. Firstly, the more we spend on healthcare, the less we have to spend on other things. As far as I’m concerned wealth creation involves creating efficiencies and freeing up income to be spend on other things. If private healthcare could provide the same quality and level of service as the NHS currently does, for the same or less, that would be fine. Given that they fundamentally need to make a profit, it seems unlikely. They also have no real incentive to provide it for the same or less. The more money they can get, the better for them. They want (and in a sense should be allowed) to optimise for profit, not for efficiency. Furthermore, a large chunk of the companies bidding for NHS work are not even UK-based companies. Why giving money to US companies or others that are – for tax purposes – based overseas is good for Britain seems nonsensical.

Essentially, I think this quote of David Cameron’s illustrates the fundamental problem with the current ideology. The basic message seems to be “private good, public bad” and is – in my view at least – extremely misguided.

Fees at US Universities

I happened to have two American students in my tutorial class yesterday, both of whom were visiting for a semester and both of whom were from Californian universities (neither of which were part of the University of California system). I was asking how they were enjoying studying in the UK and whether or not they were paying to study here. One said that they simply paid their fees to their home university and it paid the fees here. The other was paying directly and it was costing a little more than it would have cost to spend the semester back at her home university.

We then got talking about fees at US universities and how, in the case of public universities, the in-state fees could be quite low. The University of California is a public university and the fees are about $13000 per year (these have risen considerably in the last couple of years, as a few years ago they we more like $9000 per year). I should clarify that in-state means that you come from that particular state. If you are from out of state, the fees can be quite a lot higher. The State University of New York has in-state fees of $5200 per year. Essentially US public universities can be reasonably inexpensive for in-state students. The really expensive universities in the US are the Ivy League Universities (Harvard, Yale, Princeton,…), some of the good Liberal Arts Colleges, and some of the other private universities. However, as one of the students in my tutorial pointed out, only a small fraction pay the full fees as these Universities typically have excellent financial aid. She claimed that only about 15% of the students at her college paid full fees and that some of these could have received financial aid if they’d realised that they qualified. This student didn’t, however, appear terribly amused when I, jokingly, suggested that this was a great example of socialism in action.

There are two aspects of this that I find relevant to what is happening to higher education funding in the UK. One is that, as far as I’m aware, typical in-state fees at most US public university are lower than typical fees will be at most UK universities next year. The UK will go from having a public university system with relativity low fees to one of the most (if not the most) expensive public university systems in the world. The other is that even at very expensive US universities, the financial aid is very good and can provide substantial support to those who would not otherwise be able to afford to attend these universities. This isn’t to suggest that the US system is good, it’s just that to a certain extent we are attempting to emulate their system without really understanding how their system works. We are trying to introduce a free market HE system when, even in the US, the system doesn’t really work like that.

There’s also a question of why we’d even want to consider doing what is being introduced. Itis true that the US has more universities in the top 100 than any other country. The UK, however, has a population one-fifth that of the US and a GDP one-seventh that of the US. We therefore, as far as I’m aware, outperform the US. We have more universities in the top 100 than would be expected based on the size of our population or our GDP. Essentially we are planning to change what has been shown to be a very effective system for producing top universities, possibly the best system in the world. We are going to attempt to introduce a more free market-like system as might be expected to be the case in the US without really realising that this isn’t how it actually works in the US and we’re going to hope that our universities get better. Doesn’t seem likely to me. Hope I’m wrong.

Blogging and things

Yesterday’s post about science careers generated more interest that any post of mine has done for quite some time. It wasn’t a huge surprise as I knew I had linked in to various others blogs about the same subject so expected some interest. I do find, however, the interest a little unsettling. I quite enjoy writing about various things, but am also quite comfortable with very few people reading what I write. I think I am partly concerned that I’ll say something particularly stupid (which isn’t that difficult) or that what I write will be mis-interpreted. Given that I write research papers for a living this may seem a little odd, but I think this also influences how I write research papers. I don’t mind being controversial but I do try very hard to ensure that what I write is, to the best of my knowledge, correct (or as correct as it can be given the assumptions that need to be made when doing research). This may seem like an obvious thing to do but it’s not that difficult, when you’re trying to be on the cutting edge of research, to make some silly mistakes. This is especially true if there is a lot of pressure to get things published.

Anyway, the really big news of yesterday was the appointment of John Womersley as the new CEO of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), replacing (a little earlier than expected) the heavily criticised current CEO, Keith Mason. I did write a post a couple of years ago criticising something John Womersley had written but, in general, I’ve been very impressed with what I’ve seen of him. Others have already written in more detail about the new appointment, so I won’t say more other than to wish him all the best for what will presumably be quite a difficult and challenging job.

Science career structure

The issue of scientific careers and the general scientific career structure has received a lot of interest recently. This is largely due to the Science is Vital campaign who released a report that has been sent to David Willetts. Jenny Rhon, who is the chair of Science is Vital, and Athene Donald, a Professor of Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, have both written about the issues with scientific careers. There was also an interesting astro journal club on twitter (@astrojc) last week, the review of which can be found here.

One of the primary problems with the academic career structure – as highlighted by the telescoper – is the overproduction of PhD students. We’ve convinced ourselves (and government) that PhD graduates take valuable skills into industry and that therefore we should have a large number of PhD places. Although it is probably true that PhD graduates do take useful skills into industry, it’s not clear that a PhD is the optimal place in which to gain these skills. A Bologna-like system with 3 years Honours degrees followed by 2 year research Masters degrees would probably provide the skills in a shorter time and at a lower cost. Furthermore, most who start a PhD do so because they have a genuine interest in a career in research (which today is typically in academia). It can therefore be very discouraging to then discover just how difficult this is. Less than 1 in 10 have a chance of a long term career in academia. Reducing the number of PhD places and introducing research Masters degrees may therefore not only provide a better mechanism for teaching research skills, but will also be the first step towards improving the academic career structure.

There are, however, still – in my opionion – other issues with the Academic career structure. The structure is fairly monochromatic. You do a PhD then get a postdoc position. You then try to get a Fellowship followed by a permanent academic position. One of the issues I have is the significant role that getting a Fellowship has in determining whether or not someone is likely to get a permanent academic position. I accept that those who get Fellowships will be amongst the strongest in their fields and hence are quite likely to be the strongest candidates for academic positions. However, in many cases Fellowship holders are simply moved into a permanent position without any open competition being held. Many will acknowledge that getting a Fellowship is a bit of a Lottery. The Fellowship panels also primarily consider the candidate’s research record. Therefore, in my area certainly, a significant fraction of academic positions are filled by those who’ve benefited from a system that is a bit of a lottery and which doesn’t, at any stage, consider their ability to teach. To be fair, I don’t have a problem with Fellowship holders using their Fellowship to negotiate better job prospects. I have a problem with Academic departments allowing this to happen. If the Fellowship holders are indeed the strongest in their area, they are quite likely to win academic jobs through open competition. This also allows others, who may have just missed out on a Fellowship, to at least make a case for being hired into an Academic job.

There are also other games that are played. I’m aware of situations in which someone has been offered a permanent academic job only to then be offered a Fellowship that is only open to those who don’t have permanent jobs. The University then retracts the job offer so that the person can accept the Fellowship, then promises them a permanent job at the end of the Fellowship. I’m also aware of situations in which a University has interviewed for a permanent job. The successful candidate is, however, then given a university fellowship so that they can still compete for other fellowship. They are, however, promised a permanent job after 5 years. I accept that the above are probably not explicitly wrong but seem, in my view at least, to be playing fast and loose with the rules. These are also likely to be the people who would get academic jobs anyway, so this does maintain some kind of balance. However, it illustrates a lack of transparency in the system. It also illustrates something odd about academic jobs. In most industries you hire someone when you need a job to be done. In academia you can advertise for a permanent position which would typically carry a certain amount of teaching and admin and then hire someone on a Fellowship who doesn’t do much of either for a number of years. Either you need someone to do these tasks or you don’t.

How does one fix the system. I’m not exactly sure but there have been a number of suggestions (in particular during the astronomy journal club on twitter) that we should consider permanent research positions and I think this is quite sensible. At the moment, once someone gets beyond a certain age (typically expressed as an experience level, rather than age) they find it harder and harder to get a research job. There is a perception that if they haven’t yet got an academic job, there must be something wrong with them. There’s also a sense that everyone who remains in academia/research has to effectively become a group leader (or Principal Investigator – PI). There’s no real reason why some couldn’t simply have a career as a researcher. Replacing such people every few years with younger researchers is probably not optimal. There must be a way in which we could balance the system such that some people remain as researchers and other become university academics and do both teaching and research. There are numerous aspects to consider and quite how such a system would be implemented is not entirely clear. Would only university academics be allowed to become PIs or could some research only staff progress to PI level? Would we separate academic salaries into a teaching component and a research component (as is done in the US)? How would we balance the system in terms of number of PhD places, number of postdoctoral positions, number of permanent research positions and number of academic positions?

This post has become rather long, so I’m going to stop now. I hope it has contributed positively to the debate about academic career structures. I’ve been slightly concerned that I might be perceived as anti-Fellowship holders. This isn’t the case, I just don’t see why they should be given additional advantages. They are typically excellent researchers and so should be extremely competitive in the job market anyway. I probably shouldn’t worry since, as my current stats suggest, very few people will read this post.

Guardian comment’s page

Yesterday, I made a few comments on a Guardian article about Liam Fox and Adam Werrity. Essentially I responded to a comment from another commentor called kvlx387. A few comments later, someone called grubbedout aimed a comment at me in which they accused me of being a Tory Troll and telling me to go back to reading the Daily Mail. I immediately realised that they had probably aimed the comment at the wrong person and were probably intending to aim it at kvlx387. This did indeed turn out to be the case as they later apologised. What I found slightly amusing, but a little disturbing, was that 56 people recommended their comment despite the fact that it was clearly aimed at the wrong commentor. This seems to indicate that people simply quite like aggressive comments accusing others of being a Tory Troll and telling them, in no uncertain terms, to go away.

Far right-wing undemocratic?

A long time ago – when I was much younger – I assumed that, in general, the various political parties had similar goals, but different views about how to reach those goals. Essentially I assumed that all parties wanted to help to develop a decent and fair society but disagreed about the best way to achieve this. I assumed that left-wing parties believed in a welfare state providing basics services for everyone, while right-wing parties believed it better to have private provision as this would promote more growth and hence give more opportunities for people to succeed. Ultimately right-wingers believed (I thought) that most – in a well run society – would be able to afford all the things that a welfare-like state would provide.

I have known for quite some time that the above view was simplistic and naive. The Liam Fox affair seems to have illustrated just how naive the above view can be. Liam Fox has had to resign as Defense Minister because of his links to his friend, Adam Werrity, who was – it appears – being funded by right-wing lobby groups to try and influence the Defense Minister. Prior to resigning, Liam Fox seems to have been the darling of the right-wing of the Tory party.

It seems like the ultimate goal of people on the far-right of the Tory party, in the UK, and the Republican party, in the US, is to do whatever they can (within the law if possible) to help big business and big corporations. This includes influencing defense spending, spending on healthcare and influencing policy (keeping taxes low, reduced regulation, etc). They presumably argue that this is good for all of us as it helps to create a strong economy. It’s possible that this could be true by chance, but certainly doesn’t seem to be by design and on current evidence doesn’t seem to be true at all. Ultimately, the goal seems to be to try and maintain the wealth of those who are already wealthy and, as far as I can tell, very little of what they try to do is in any way aimed at helping society in general.

It seems – to me at least – that the goals of the far right are not entirely consistent with what I would regard as the principles of democracy. Our elected leaders are meant to be ruling in such a way as to create a society that’s free and fair for all, not just for the wealthiest few. Of course, those on the far-right of the Tory and Republican parties are indeed elected so it’s partly our own fault for believing their rhetoric. There’s also nothing strictly illegal about holding these views (even if some of their tactics might be). You can’t really accuse them of being prejudiced. You don’t have to be from a particular race group, gender, or have a particular sexual orientation. You don’t even have to be from a wealthy background, you just have to be wealthy now. The main issue I have is that their policies seem to be explicitly aimed at benefiting the few rather than the many and hence do not appear to be consistent with what I would regard as the standard democratic principles.

One might argue that the same could be said of the far-left of the Labour and Democratic parties. Acknowledging that both left- an right-wing radicals are dangerous, the left-leaning elements of the Labour and Democratic party at least have policies that are aimed at benefiting the many rather than the few. I would happily agree that hardcore socialism is not a good way to run a society, but at least the intention is decent and consistent with the basic principles of democracy (at least in theory, if not in practice).

Just as I started writing this I discovered this article by George Monbiot about
think-tanks suggesting that the practices of many right-wing think-tanks are a threat to democracy. It’s more factual that what I’ve written above and certainly worth a read.