harder to get into any phd programs than med school?

[Quix]

I think this was his point (kind of) and I think you're wrong:

A PhD in chemistry would be able to compete significantly better in philosophy against a PhD in philosophy, than a the Philosophy PhD would be able to compete in chemistry.

Not so sure about this; having taught both chemistry labs and philosophy courses, these kinds of generalizations don't usually work (I've taught about 1000 students). The science majors I've taught have tended to be "solve for x" thinkers, and tend not to like fields with a lot more gray than black and white. Science and philosophy are not bodies of knowledge; they are methodologies.

Regardless, I think it's hard to generalize about the difficulty of medical school vs. doctoral program admission. Some programs wine and dine their applicants, some don't (for instance, this is *much* more common in the sciences than the humanities, as the amount of federal research funding for the sciences dwarfs that for the humanities, which makes it easier to set aside departmental budgets for applicant wooing).

Competition following the completion of the doctoral degree isn't really comparable either - for instance, I've been teaching since 2002, but only got a tenure track job this year (and there were 60 applicants for the position in question).

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[engineetor]

I think it's next to impossible to compare admissions (MD vs PhD) but i'll try.

Overall, it is easier to get into ANY PhD program compared to ANY M.D program--there are a lot more PhD programs out there and they recruit heavily.

First at the core, the PhD is an academic and research degree and this drives the recruitment. Universities typically want to recruit PhD level students in order to obtain results. Since your PhD thesis is "a long term assignment" upon graduation you'll provide tangible results. These results could lead to publications and notoriety which can indirectly lead to tenureship for professors and most importantly increased funding (grants) and overall program growth.

Recruiting combined with a higher number of PhD programs (almost all universities have one) yield an easier admission standard than medical schools--universities want more PhD students so they can produce results and get more research dollars.

Another thing you need to look at is the "degree" of admissions by funding. While it might be easy to get into any PhD program it is much harder to get full-funding from a PhD program. Since most Medical colleges don't offer internal scholarships, this adds another variable.

I think a much better comparison would be a PhD program versus residency program.

 

[SireSpanky]

I think this was his point (kind of) and I think you're wrong:

A PhD in chemistry would be able to compete significantly better in philosophy against a PhD in philosophy, than a the Philosophy PhD would be able to compete in chemistry.

As a PhD Candidate in Chemistry, I don't know if this is true. I think nearly all my classmates would be lost in a philosophical debate (even though both the Philo. and Chem. PhD's both have a Doctorate in Philosophy!)

 

[engineetor]

I agree with SireSpanky--at the PhD level there is a huge discrepancy in what the field appears to be (to outsiders) and what it really is.

For example, most natural science undergrads might believe that being proficient in Math entails a course of study up to Multivariable Calculus or Statistics, at the MS/PhD level you'll find that Calculus has very little to do with other topics such as Analysis, Topology or Algebraic Structures.

While there are certainly overlaps (Math/Physics/Chemistry), especially in very interdisciplinary fields (Engineering), you'll find that most hardcore science PhD students would know very little about the liberal arts and vica versa.

 

[Quix]

The fun part about this is that as you move towards the limits of current theory and application, the line between science and philosophy gets very, *very* blurry.

 

[SireSpanky]

The fun part about this is that as you move towards the limits of current theory and application, the line between science and philosophy gets very, *very* blurry.

I agree completely, but I think the philosophies at the edge of scientific research and the philosophies discussed by a true philosopher are very different. Not many truly bridge that junction - maybe fields like stephen hawkings' theoretical cosmology would be the best example?

 

[dmblue]

I don't have numbers but


Most people who apply to med school apply to MANY reaches and they apply to a ton of schools. I've seen people apply to 20-30 schools.

For the most part people only apply to a few PhD programs.


Your acceptance rate data is largely affected by this. Again, I don't have actual numbers

 

[witness23]

why y'all gotta bring up old ish, so 2008

 

[Quix]

I agree completely, but I think the philosophies at the edge of scientific research and the philosophies discussed by a true philosopher are very different. Not many truly bridge that junction - maybe fields like stephen hawkings' theoretical cosmology would be the best example?

That will depend on the nature of the philosophers in question. It certainly intersects with the history and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, epistemology, ontology and metaphysics, etc. Applied ethics? Less so.

 

[Wiingy]

The fun part about this is that as you move towards the limits of current theory and application, the line between science and philosophy gets very, *very* blurry.

I agree with this statement completely - I'm currently working on a microbial ecology project and one of the big problems with trying to decide what bacterial species live where is that we can't even figure out how to define a bacterial species. Do you use DNA/DNA hybridization? How do you distinguish between an arbitrary and non-arbitrary cutoff? Is the idea of bacterial species even useful? Since most bacteria are unculturable, the only evidence for about half of the known phyla is DNA evidence - and since these DNA-based distinctions are all arbitrary anyway, it's possible that none of our data even mean anything. So our entire view of the prokaryotic world might well be flawed, and there's no hard scientific methods that can prove or disprove this - hence lots of scientists trying to get into the philosophy of the subject.

 

[SireSpanky]

I don't have numbers but


Most people who apply to med school apply to MANY reaches and they apply to a ton of schools. I've seen people apply to 20-30 schools.

For the most part people only apply to a few PhD programs.


Your acceptance rate data is largely affected by this. Again, I don't have actual numbers

That's actually a really good point. It is so much easier to just click an additional school on AMCAS (or TMDSAS for those texans, like myself) and fill out a very short secondary than send your LORs and transcripts and different essays to 20 various PhD programs. The ease of the AMCAS is also, perhaps, one of the contributing factors for the high #s of applicants at so many schools. I have heard med. school advisors tell their applicants to apply to at least one top school so it makes their application look stronger - I mean, literally, applying just to say they applied.