Science in Russian

Previously, dissertations were written like this: Eureka! I invented something very new, amazing, which doesn’t exist in the world yet. We urgently need to notify the world. Two months of sleepless nights - dissertation. Hooray! He advanced science. Well done.

Now the defense process is as follows: You routinely study all 1,000,000,000 studies on this topic and so on that came before you, then you ask for a long time, raising your hands to the sky, what hasn’t been researched yet? And after a couple of months, the dissertation council reads something like “An invention based on an addition to the invention, using the example of an invention, adjusted for the invention”... etc. The variability and usefulness of this research tends to zero. Stamp. You are fit to get a crust in the scientific world. Eat some more of these soft buns.

Dissertation research today is part of the status of any literate person who has a little more patience, free time and ambition than other individuals.

You get acquainted with many scientific works, so many that you fall into this abyss. You systematize what has been systematized millions of times before you, quote, present several (hundreds) of similar points of view in retrospect, you try to understand what new the world wants in humanitarian knowledge, where antiquity is rewritten from century to century, and who knows, who was the primary source for the pantheon of philosophers.

The question is that out of a million studies you have studied, only the first million will be even remotely suitable for drawing a fairly simple idea. The institution of obtaining a candidate's certificate has become so formalized that it is difficult to identify in it the work that is really needed by society.

It is superficial and unreasonable to say: “Oh, there is an Anti-Plagiarism machine, it knows for sure that even President Putin copied it!” (With reference to the source "Korrespondent.net" in the top Ukrainian (!) news.) We just go with the flow, like many people of our time. Quite literate, well-read and intelligent. We are faced with the task of going through all the circles of hell of the multi-stage degree-obtaining machine. We fulfill all the conditions to obtain a degree. Most of those who joyfully put “likes” under the cry “and the president writes off” have not even reached this step in their lives. Perhaps it’s bad that the dissertation machine has soured, like many atavisms of a clearly formalized, but working, “scoop” system. It’s bad that it’s not possible to reorient it with reforms or incentives like state housing for young scientists. This is a real problem. The world is looking for a vaccine against AIDS, cancer, people watch talk shows about the healing properties of ointments instead of running in the morning. But this is not the fault of the allegedly “written off” president.

Here he is, a man who went through this machine of bureaucracy in the legendary 90s. Did he have special conditions, different from, say, me and other graduate students? Your own public opinion laboratory? The scientific world of that time, as well as the outside world, was similar to the theater of the absurd. In fact, when you defend yourself today, you simply satisfy the demands of the academic council. What did science demand then? Bread? New state construction? New economic theory? Well, the man did not become Smith, he did not become Ricardo, he became the President of the Federation, this, you see, is a lot.

He went through all this fussy, multi-wise hell of the bureaucracy of the scientific world, he saw that this scientific world is full of smart, literate, well-mannered and educated people. Not all of them are sold, and those who are sold do not always do so based on personal gain, but are only subject to system-wide requirements. This world suffers the shame of petty trade, which turns into big trade in degrees and topics.

I live in the south of Ukraine, and I preferred protection at the most ordinary Moscow university to protection at any Ukrainian university due to the greater amount of available literature on my topic. I can objectively say that I have not experienced any discrimination during all my years of study due to the fact that my passport has a trident instead of an eagle. I, like many of my graduate student friends from different countries, are little concerned about the issue of citizenship, but I am increasingly oppressed by bureaucracy as an end in itself for protection.

In the 4th year of research, having passed the candidate minimum, I wonder if I need a degree in order to show the world my accumulated scientific experience? There are blogs, social networks, forums. Do I need to prove my personal integrity by completing this work with a defense procedure? What will a degree give to a young scientist? Opportunity to teach at a university? Then any person who has received a “crust” through financial, power or intellectual means will teach my future children. Well, if in an intellectual way, then young minds will receive a worthy mentor. What if not? If all fairly literate, searching people will simply lose the incentive to defend their dissertation, because the usual publication of scientific, as well as other, ideas on social networks does not require such enormous patience from them, overcoming bureaucratic difficulties. What then? Who will go teach at universities? And most importantly, what will it teach children?

Yes, yes, I want more government programs for young scientists! I want their research to be not formally, but practically tied to one or another production. Why doesn’t anyone cross science and modern business, not in relation to the commercialization of the scientific world, but in relation to improving the economic development of the country?

Why do we, graduate students, who have written multi-page Word documents with reposts from great and not so great research, in no way reform the national, universal idea of ​​​​the personal development of each person? Why is our goal to formally obtain some degree that no one needs, instead of developing by our example in others an interest in learning, in comprehending new, useful things? We cannot in any way set the task of the scientific world to serve the development and prosperity of the non-scientific world.

I feel some kind of dissatisfaction with the institution of defense as such, because I don’t feel the need for what I do. It would seem that there are a lot of minds, several thousand minds. There is a thirst to create for good. There is a country, Ukraine, Russia, some other country where a person lives. In this country, there are natural resources, there are people who want to eat, want to work somewhere. They want to raise healthy children. They want social institutions to take care of them and improve them with constant reforms.

I have never read the news that someone’s dissertation was discussed during the reforms of the same pension fund, healthcare, and education. I have never heard in the news that any thriving company paid attention to the experience of modern scientific research. Then why, one might ask, is there all this huge archive in Leninka?

To isolate what percentage the president “plagiarized”? To give “likes” and loudly shout “Wow”, and then look away from the monitor into gray reality and accumulate aggression?

Our business, civil service and science with all their people and ideas are like 3 blind men in one room. Only the roof connects them. They don't see each other. Therefore, they cannot help, act together for the good. We do not have the culture to compare these concepts and communicate coherently in this environment. And if people are deaf to each other, then any project for them, as well as a project for a successful life within a given country, will turn into a Tower of Babel.

In fact, young scientists become simply a “screen” for the successful prosperity of a city or region. They are “showed” during the visits of people like Yanukovych or Putin. This means the region is healthy. Versatile. It contains, like in the Simpsons parody series, a school, a hospital, a nuclear power plant, and even science. But the prime minister’s plane heads for another region and you, along with other guys, return to the department, to your apartment, or enter the labor market, where cashiers, builders, and salespeople are welcome and those who study economic theory, public opinion, or know the properties of metals are not welcome.

As a result, those guys who are weaker in character give up scientific activities and become the working class, periodically bringing “pearls” from their once good university education to their colleagues. Pearls are stopped. And the person withdraws into himself. And those guys who are stronger send their vast minds to business or large companies, make a career, and either due to lack of time, or due to a change in current tasks, abandon their scientific research. Thus, the nation is deprived of the opportunity to grow and develop for the benefit. And it develops spontaneously.