Sure there's a small percentage of scientists that actually drives research forward. But most scientists are involved in unimportant, piecemeal research that only tenuously drives the field forward. They're just in it for the grant money - yeah it's not much but they take home 40k - 80k and everyone's happy.
Name:
Anonymous2008-11-14 15:46
Oh and on a related note, contractors and government employees are FAR worse. 90% of the work gets done by 10% of the people. Seriously.
My paycheck goes through SIX agencies who all take a cut and only two of them actually do any work. Let me say that again to be perfectly clear. There are four agencies in the chain that do NOTHING. They basically took the contract and turned around and hired another cheaper company to do everything they were supposed to do. It's ridiculous. If we got rid of those faggots, I'd be making literally THREE TIMES AS MUCH (or, alternatively, the TAX FUNDED project could be a shit load cheaper... or a lot cheaper and I still make a lot more...).