<story><title>Poverty and social background remain huge barriers in scientific careers</title><url>http://www.nature.com/news/is-science-only-for-the-rich-1.20650</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>kaitai</author><text>As I write this, there are just a small number of comments, all saying &amp;quot;there&amp;#x27;s no money in research&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;scientists are paid less than McDonald&amp;#x27;s burger flipper&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s like a whole section of disgruntled grad students who wanted to be professors. There is tons of money in science! People who &amp;quot;fail out&amp;quot; of or never wanted to pursue the stupid academic dream become active in patent law, become managers at pharma and biomed companies, oversee quality control at chemical firms, write documentation for medical devices, run labs, work as lab techs. These are all good jobs compared to the jobs the majority of Americans are qualified for.&lt;p&gt;Seems like HN has a very warped view, this view that &amp;quot;there&amp;#x27;s no money in research&amp;quot; means some poor kid is better off flipping burgers into her 50s than becoming a lab manager.</text></comment>
<story><title>Poverty and social background remain huge barriers in scientific careers</title><url>http://www.nature.com/news/is-science-only-for-the-rich-1.20650</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ap22213</author><text>Man, wish I could find the link - I had read something probably 10 years ago that discussed the abnormally high number of independently wealthy people in academia and research. Makes sense given how expensive it is and how infrequently it nets positive ROI.&lt;p&gt;A big part of science are &amp;#x27;ideas&amp;#x27;, and ideas are interesting things in Human culture. To be the &amp;#x27;idea person&amp;#x27; in a social group requires considerable social status. I see so many people in corporations battling to have their ideas win. I see so many people of higher status claiming ownership of the ideas of those &amp;#x27;beneath&amp;#x27; them. I see plenty of great ideas being ignored because of who proposes them.  And, it&amp;#x27;s very rare to see an outsider&amp;#x27;s idea gain influence.&lt;p&gt;They say that execution matters much more than ideas - but they go hand-in-hand.  The person who gets to execute also gets to choose the idea.&lt;p&gt;Given the comparitive physical weakness of the Human, &amp;#x27;the idea&amp;#x27; is their number one weapon and asset. It enables power. So, there are probably a lot of social reasons why most lower-status (lower income) people are kept out of science and research.  It&amp;#x27;s probably more of a systematic result of Human behavior than just being poor.</text></comment>