My thoughts on the whole Mike Israetel PhD saga.
Reflections on the PhD process
I’ve watched this unfold for the past week now. A PhD was criticised, then it was a draft, then it was the final submitted thesis. It’s hard to keep up.
While some people latched on to issues around spelling errors, poorly presented graphs etc there are key points about the scientific process that were highlighted but aren’t being discussed enough.
After the initial criticism I saw online after the Solomon Nelson youtube video was released really highlighted two things: a) Influencers really like to jump on a bandwagon to bring someone down. It’s like a sport to them. And b) A lot of people’s perception about what a PhD is and what it’s role is is wrong. As stated in the Dr Milo Wolf video, a PhD IS your apprenticeship towards becoming a research scientist. The idea that every PhD is the pinnacle of that research academic’s work is just not true, though for some research scientists this might end up being true. You’re in the learning phase of your academic career, further refining the research skills you learned during your undergraduate and postgraduate work in a huge investigative project. At the end of the PhD you (should) have the skills to further pursue science in your PhD area, or have the research skills to pursue science in another area. These critical skills can also be taken outside of academia, which many end up doing because they have interests elsewhere and because there are just not many research jobs around (and they often pay poorly).
Although spread out into several studies/chapters the actual content of the studies only equate to one cross-sectional study, which, in my opinion, only equates to the first study of a PhD or a Master’s thesis. Is this enough to satisfy the criteria of a doctoral investigation? No. Do I think Mike has ability to complete a PhD? Yeah, probably. But this thesis is not enough. According to Mike on his recent Instagram post this study only equated to 1/3 of his PhD, the other 2/3 coming from coaching and module work. This sounds like a great programme for someone looking to be a practitioner in S&C, but again, this is a MSc programme (certainly in the UK), not a PhD.
Your supervisors should only move you onto your final viva when they believe you and your document is ready to be defended. I don’t see how this happened with the thesis submitted in 2013 (The one Solomon reviewed). The way the results are presented is SO poor (regardless of the minor errors like spelling) and the written portions are very descriptive rather than providing a critique of the literature. It is up to the supervisors to provide support here. People are busy criticising Mike but is the reality that Mike has been neglected during his PhD programme? The supervisory team and the academic practices at the Uni should be held accountable here. (note: yes I have read the revised version on Mike’s google doc. It is much better but based on the story so far it is because it was corrected recently? Correct me if I am wrong).
If many of his studies used data from one data collection session, that’s fine. Put this in a methods chapter, which the later studies/chapters can refer to and then have study specific information in the methods section of those chapters. This would stop the copy/paste methods issue. The narrative of the thesis is very important and that needs to be reflected and presented in the document. Just shoving studies next to each other isn’t the point of a thesis. Your PhD document and how you write your studies up for publication are different.
I hope social media moves on from this shitstorm soon. Science is a collaborative effort and should be accessible to all. It should also be held to specific standards to drive science forward and stop misinformation. Mistakes will happen and the transparency of highlighting these mistakes, acknowledging them and providing corrections is all part of the process. However, a PhD should never be used as a ‘I’m smarter than you so therefore I’m right’ form of gatekeeping.
We can all do better.
Keep embracing creativity
Dr Phil Price
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