This is one person who is not afraid from telling the truth [Talking about Shunwei]. Yes, it is slave labor. Last semester, I got very close to my Ochem TA, and discussed many issues with him about research. He was involved with research, and told me that basically what they are doing with the research is doing a bunch of repeated experiments, rewording previous publications, and publishing the results. Finally all the research assistants get paid by a small portion of the big chunk of money which gets into the chemistry department for research projects.
Having said that, I don't want to lower the value of research in science; however, many of these research projects are BS, and simply a means of feeding the department with a good load of money. Not every research project is designed by a serious professor who is really trying to make some advancement in science. They want the money most of the time, period. Research assistants get paid $10/hour for their work, and who knows where the rest of those million dollar budgets goes.
99.5% of the research projects out there are indeed BS and contribute nothing to the practical realm and utility of science. For example, how does figuring out how a protein folds in Arabidopsis contribute to the pragmatic world of man? Even if one can argue (weakly) that the science may be applicable to medicine and whatnot, it's at the very least several levels away from making any direct relevance. Therefore, most researchers are simply working on "intellectual" problems that truly interest only themselves and maybe 4-5 other people in whole world.
Although research is indeed important, the way the universities run it is a business in its pure and simple form. Most universities take a big chunk (usually 50%) of all grants its faculties bring in, in the form of "overhead." Think of this as the researcher's rent where he leases the space of the lab, the electricity to run the pad, the water, etc. Thus, there is a huge incentive for universities to urge people to go into research, because the more papers it can squeeze out of its students/postdocs (it doesn't matter if it's mundane or not), the more grant money it can pull in. Conversely, this also means that the researcher's grant may not be as impressive as it may first sound to a layman. For example, a school that brings in 10 million yr only has 5 million practical money for its labs (the rest of overhead), and this is spread out among, say, 50 PI's in the department. This means only 100k per PI, which means the support of a couple of grad students, maybe a postdoc, with the rest as equipment money for a microfuge, PCR machine, enzymes, etc. Not much at all and certainly a lot less impressive than it first sounds.
In my program, I meet some of my classmates who are DDS/PhD candidates. Sometimes I ask them why they do it, and surprisingly (well, actually, not much of a surprise; I will get to that a little below) they don't have a clear-cut, convincing reason why they want the PhD. I find this to be extremely dangerous, because they are signing for something that will take 3-4 additional years of precious time that does not have an intrinsic appeal to them; most times I just hear "Oh I like research and science, and therefore I am doing it." Well, no, that's not a good reason. Liking science is a totally different animal than doing science. However, I am not surprised at these attitudes. Most young people (like myself, years ago) are attracted to science for the wrong reasons, and yet they are extremely ignorant of sound advice and truth when these present themselves.
Bottom line is this: Research is important, but don't get into the mindset that it is sexy. It's not. It's grunt work that is done mostly by foreigners from China/India nowadays (look at any biomed department at large universities around the country), for paltry pay and an extremely stressful lifestyle. Personally, I am very glad I got out of it, because life is too short for that kind of lifestyle.
