Why do doctors and lawyers make more money than physicists?

[Poop-Loops]

Why would we study medicine if we weren't going to practice it in the first place?

 

[0rthodontist]

Well, this appears to be heading in circles. We would study human biology for the purpose of prevention, i.e. nutrition, exercise, sanitation.

If you're trying to say that we would not study human biology in general--with applications to biotech, for example--as deeply if there were not doctors, this argument seems rather inessential to the work value of doctors. That doctors indirectly provide incentive for biologists is not part of what the job of being a doctor is, so it doesn't change their work value. In any case if biologists weren't studying human biology as much then they might be scientists in other disciplines, which might then be more advanced, so it's a double edged sword.

My point is that doctors are not essential to human progress, while engineers and scientists are. Doctors make life a lot nicer but they do not advance the state of civilization.

 

[pivoxa15]

I haven't followed all the discussion but one way a pure scientist could make big money is by writing books or movies for the general public. But offcourse you would have to be very good to do that. I think more scientists are doing this than ever (espeically physicists). This is (pretty much) the only way pure scientists can become multi-millionares.

So they have the advantage that what they do is genuinely interesting (and profit from it by telling others about it). It is harder for the practical doctors or lawyers to do this.

 

[Poop-Loops]

My point is that doctors are not essential to human progress, while engineers and scientists are. Doctors make life a lot nicer but they do not advance the state of civilization.

Living longer and without pain IS an advance in civilization.

So, pivoxa15, you're saying that in order for physicists to make more money is to do something other than physics? Super.

 

[0rthodontist]

Yes, the medical system is an advance in civilization, but it does not itself advance civilization. If scientists are potters, doctors are vases.

 

[pivoxa15]

So, pivoxa15, you're saying that in order for physicists to make more money is to do something other than physics? Super.

Well not necessarily, look at Penrose with his philosophy of mind books and 'road to reality' which contains some science. But you do have some point.

Normally an academic physicist would need to do research and teach. I guess a really good one might have the option of doing research and write. So instead of teaching, they write popular science books that are related to their field of research. The scientists themselves might learn something as well especially if they are branching to something new. For example, Hawking surely would have learned something new in math as a result of his book 'God created the Integers'. This new information might help him with his physics research in the future.

Another thing is that science is empirical in nature so it will benefit the theorists to write books for the general public because not only will their experimental collegues be able to learn (I guess it is difficult for them to read every article in theoretical journals) but scientists in other fields will also benefit from reading it and potentially write back to the theorists with new ideas. Hence increasing awareness in science (especially the fundalmental topics) is always good. However, this route might not be so good for a first class pure mathematican where pure uninterrupted research is often first priority - anything else is pure distraction.

 

[Poop-Loops]

You're a pothead. :P

Doctors let scientists live longer. You think Einstein would have developed all of his theories if he had died at the age of 20 due to the flue or some other trivial disease we scoff at these days?

 

[Poop-Loops]

Well not necessarily, look at Penrose with his philosophy of mind books and 'road to reality' which contains some science. But you do have some point.

Normally an academic physicist would need to do research and teach. I guess a really good one might have the option of doing research and write. So instead of teaching, they write popular science books that are related to their field of research.

Another thing is that science is empirical in nature so it will benefit the theorists to write books for the general public because not only will their experimental collegues be able to learn (I guess it is difficult for them to read articles in theoretical journals) but scientists in other fields will also benefit from reading it and potentially write back to the theorists with new ideas. Hence increasing awareness in science (especially the fundalmental topics) is always good. However, this route might not be so good for a first class pure mathematican where pure uninterrupted research is often first priority - anything else is pure distraction.

The only way I see a scientist every becoming rich is if he or she starts their own business (like my current chem instructor did, before deciding he likes teaching more than money) or invent something on their own.

 

[pivoxa15]

The only way I see a scientist every becoming rich is if he or she starts their own business (like my current chem instructor did, before deciding he likes teaching more than money) or invent something on their own.

The business better be science related but what you're suggesting is for practical scientists.

I was suggesting how theorists is able to make big money. Although only the famous theorists is able to take this route hence only a few by definition. Incidently they are also the people who do not need money due to their already high salary which is similar to a good doctor or lawyer.

 

[Plastic Photon]

All in all though engineers and physicists are not paid poorly... compare them, for example, to sociologists.

Sociologist is someone who never left kindregarten. The other day (in sociology class) people were allowed to do their stand up comedy and tell other joke, discuss their family and talk about celebrities! Who pays someone to talk about Oprah! I can do that for free: I hate Oprah. In fact, I do it some more: Oprah is conceited. Wooo!

Sociologist study groups, so I guess they should start studying why all the groups of people around them make considerably more.

 

[Plastic Photon]

You're a pothead. :P

Doctors let scientists live longer. You think Einstein would have developed all of his theories if he had died at the age of 20 due to the flue or some other trivial disease we scoff at these days?

I guess the debate will never end...where would current medical technology and medicine be without scientist? Did medical doctors discovery x-rays, radiation, doublehelix bond of DNA, hyperdermic needles, stethoscopes...?

 

[Manchot]

I guess the debate will never end...where would current medical technology and medicine be without scientist? Did medical doctors discovery x-rays, radiation, doublehelix bond of DNA, hyperdermic needles, stethoscopes...?

No. And they also didn't discover most of the medicines they use: researchers did.

Doctors let scientists live longer. You think Einstein would have developed all of his theories if he had died at the age of 20 due to the flue or some other trivial disease we scoff at these days?

Most of our increased life expectancy is due to increased sanitation and the vaccines you are given as a child (again, which are developed by researchers, not practicing medical doctors). The reason that life expectancy used to be so low was because of a high child mortality rate. Once you reached the age of 5 or so, your chances of living to 50 or 60 was fairly great. (There is a reason that you don't see many 20 year olds dying from the flu, but you do see more children and the elderly doing so.)

 

[Poop-Loops]

So you people are saying doctors don't contribute anything to society?

 

[gyroverse]

Everybody can't be the master of all trades and that's probably why we live in society .Its not about who contributes or not because doctors and scientists both contribute to society in their own specific ways but I think we are wandering off the topic of this discussion .People don't go into research for money but that should definitely be a part of the package...because I've always felt that scientist contribute the most to society i guess other people just don't realize it now.

 

[phun]

So you people are saying doctors don't contribute anything to society?

Yes they do. Just like plumbers contribute to society by fixing toilets, doctors (those who do not contribute to scientific research) contribute to society by fixing whatever is wrong with your body. Otherwise we wouldn't be paying them all that money.

In fact, we think they contribute so much to our society that we'd have to pay them hundreds of dollors for showing their pretty faces and saying "you are going to be fine" when 4th year medical school students do the actual work.

That said, I think well-established physicists are getting paid enough to live comfortably. Most physicists I've seen are so dedicated to their research that they wouldn't have enough time to spend the extra money even if they got paid better. What's more important to them is how much research money they get -- which can be way more than what most doctors get paid.

One last point. I wonder how popular pre-med track would be if doctors' salleries were capped at 100k by law -- 100k is enough to live comfortably by any measure.

 

[Manchot]

So you people are saying doctors don't contribute anything to society?

I'm saying that they don't contribute nearly as much as the medical researchers do. (And yet, they get paid more.)

 

[TMFKAN64]

I think the number one idea that many of you need to drop is the idea that pay in any way reflects the value of work. Perhaps it should, in an ideal world... but in the real world that we all have to live in, pay reflects supply and demand, nothing more.

If you really want to raise the pay of physicists, form a union.

 

[Line]

My simple point is that scientests are just as important than doctors. However 1 scientest take Einstein was far more important that your general doctor.

My pint is even if the have to study exactly as much physicist have to study harder. I mean we both study calculas but will they ever use it?

ANd as for scientests not innventing fire or the wheel while it's not modern technology it is technology. True you may or may not call stoneage inventors scientests but they were the stoneage equivelants.

Doctors mostly repair things,scientests discover and invent things which is far more contributions.

Oh and on the bad rep scientests get,we still do. All throughout Modern Western Civilization scientests have been seen as geeks,loosers,and psycopaths. All you have to do as look at the early 20th movies liek Frankenstein to see just what I'm talking about. Dr.Frankenstein is potrayed as this weird wide-eyed MAD SCIENTEST whom like to cut people up and use their parts with wild hair screaming "It's Alive!". They even have twisted plots to take over the world. Even in the 90s we get the dork Steve Urkell. The maniac scientests still existed in the 90s with The Doc in Back To The Future.Doctors on the other hand are potrayed nicely and even get seen has handsome guys with great social lives. And if you don't know what I'm talking about by ruling the world just watch Pinky And The Brain.

 

[Poop-Loops]

The whole "scientists are geeks and beyond normal humans" probably really started around the time of the Manhattan Project, where everything was kept hush-hush. You're right, though. Every time I tell someone I'm a physics major (and I don't boast about it, I just answer their question), they tell me "Oh... you're one of those smart people..." but in a way that makes me feel bad, as if I'm doing something wrong.

 

[franznietzsche]

The whole "scientists are geeks and beyond normal humans" probably really started around the time of the Manhattan Project, where everything was kept hush-hush. You're right, though. Every time I tell someone I'm a physics major (and I don't boast about it, I just answer their question), they tell me "Oh... you're one of those smart people..." but in a way that makes me feel bad, as if I'm doing something wrong.

You're not supposed to tell them about the awful man-ape chimera hybrids you're genetically engineering using equipment built from tossed out 1980s boomboxes in your basement La-bor-a-tor-y (dexter's lab accent emphasized) silly. No wonder they look at you funny.

 

[Line]

Umm western society looking down us didn't begin in the 20th century. It was going on atleast to the 1400s.

Scienc eas always at a complete disagreeal with religion. The Church in Europe was totally into the idea that there was a God that created the Earth in 7 days, made man in Eden only 5,000 years ago and the Earth was flat. Any one one who didn't believe this was just adeplorable person.

Although around but few the scientests and freethinkers believed that we came from apes,the Earth was round,it's 5 billion years old,we're not the center of the universe, and other ideas that sounded absurdly crazy at the time but we now know are true. At the forefront of tis movement were the scientests that got their names in the historybook and were tourted, imprisoned,over even executed for their radical thoughts.
Sir Issaac Newton,Galelieo,Capernicus,Darwin,Columbus,and even Nostradamus.

 

[ZapperZ]

I HATE THIS THREAD!

I dislike the tone that it takes, and I dislike the self-centeredness that it assumes.

If the ONLY way that one can justify one's importance is by degrading and belittling other profession, then one DESERVES to be ostricized and dismissed by the public. I can't believe that we have to resort to such tactics. Why can't you just show the vital contribution a profession makes and why it is so important, rather than trying to show why such and such a profession is less important and less "difficult", whatever that means.

This thread is embarrassing, and an embarrassment to PF in my opinon.

Zz.

 

[Line]

IYO right? Nowhere was I belittling them. If anyone get's itit's scientests. In a nutshell they can work really hard and not get paid nearly as much.

Amd FYI doctors are study lots but don't apply it. FOr years I sat in the doctors office and they couldn't figure out what was wrong with me when I had the idea all the time. I tried to tell my psychologist idea that I was having a certain problem but she just looked at me like I was one. They just set you down,ask you dumb questions, try to change you around and take your money...all while not solving the problem! I mean how would I know hwhat's wrong with me, I'm only the person sitting inside of my body!

Now if we want to belittle somebody I'd go with businessmen and politicians.

 

[Laura1013]

Scienc eas always at a complete disagreeal with religion. The Church in Europe was totally into the idea that there was a God that created the Earth in 7 days, made man in Eden only 5,000 years ago and the Earth was flat. Any one one who didn't believe this was just adeplorable person.

I wasn't going to post on this thread, but I really don't think you know what you're talking about at all, because what you said above is completely false. You should try reading some history before you make blanket statements like that.

And that ends my involvement on this post, because I too dislike it very much.

 

[G01]

IYO right? Nowhere was I belittling them. If anyone get's itit's scientests. In a nutshell they can work really hard and not get paid nearly as much.

Amd FYI doctors are study lots but don't apply it. FOr years I sat in the doctors office and they couldn't figure out what was wrong with me when I had the idea all the time. I tried to tell my psychologist idea that I was having a certain problem but she just looked at me like I was one. They just set you down,ask you dumb questions, try to change you around and take your money...all while not solving the problem! I mean how would I know hwhat's wrong with me, I'm only the person sitting inside of my body!

Now if we want to belittle somebody I'd go with businessmen and politicians.

You would be dead without doctors, you know that right? Sure, scientists develop medicines, but its the doctors who are responsible for learning when to use it effectively and how it will affect you. Sure, scientists developed penicilin, but if your allergic to penicillin, its you doctors, job to find another antibiotic that will work effectively against that pathogen.

This whole debate is like saying which is more important in a computer, software or hardware. Both are important, the computer wouldn't exist and function without both. Without hardware, it wouldn't physically be there, and without software it would just be a useless circuit. So let this thread die.

 

[Poop-Loops]

I HATE THIS THREAD!

I dislike the tone that it takes, and I dislike the self-centeredness that it assumes.

If the ONLY way that one can justify one's importance is by degrading and belittling other profession, then one DESERVES to be ostricized and dismissed by the public. I can't believe that we have to resort to such tactics. Why can't you just show the vital contribution a profession makes and why it is so important, rather than trying to show why such and such a profession is less important and less "difficult", whatever that means.

This thread is embarrassing, and an embarrassment to PF in my opinon.

Zz.

You have to agree, though, lawyers are pretty useless.

 

[TMFKAN64]

You have to agree, though, lawyers are pretty useless.

If I were a lawyer, I'd sue you for saying that. Intentional infliction of emotional distress.

 

[Plastic Photon]

This whole debate is like saying which is more important in a computer, software or hardware. Both are important, the computer wouldn't exist and function without both. Without hardware, it wouldn't physically be there, and without software it would just be a useless circuit. So let this thread die.

But what if physics is the computer and the medical doctor is the software? Wouldn't it seem odd thatthe software is valued more than the whole of the system?

 

[Line]

Precisley. You guys are scientests but haven't learned how to read.
Nowhere in this topic have I said doctors weren't important. With some
fundemental understanding you'd see that I was only saying that scientests are just as important as doctors but get often are paid far less. Besides I think Science is waaay harder.

And as for Religion, there's now way at all that you could know about History or Science without knowing that tons and tons of people were executed for believing views that were unorthadox. I could even get into the genocidesinquisitions,and senslavement all do to religious bigotry but that's an entirly different argument. Don't you know how many people were burned at the stake for believing that the world is round?

 

[TMFKAN64]

I would guess none, actually. Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth for more information on the topic.

 

[0rthodontist]

You would be dead without doctors, you know that right? Sure, scientists develop medicines, but its the doctors who are responsible for learning when to use it effectively and how it will affect you. Sure, scientists developed penicilin, but if your allergic to penicillin, its you doctors, job to find another antibiotic that will work effectively against that pathogen.

This whole debate is like saying which is more important in a computer, software or hardware. Both are important, the computer wouldn't exist and function without both. Without hardware, it wouldn't physically be there, and without software it would just be a useless circuit. So let this thread die.

Well, with physicists and engineers you have a working modern society even if you don't have doctors, but with just doctors you are in the stone age, so it is clear that the scientists matter more.

 

[G01]

But what if physics is the computer and the medical doctor is the software? Wouldn't it seem odd thatthe software is valued more than the whole of the system?

The point that I was trying to make was that both doctors and scientists are part of a greater whole and each do there job. Whether one is easier than the other is a matter of opinion. I have a friend who loves computer science and finds it easy. I find it hard. I like physics, but i from what I hear the biology labs at my school sound much more challenging than the physics labs I take. But that's my OPINION. Yes, physics is definitely the most important science considering it is thefundamental science, but that doesn't make a physicst any more important than any other person in society. The laws of physics will still be there without him.

Hell A physicist wouldn't be able to function without garbage collectors because they would be too busy disposing all of their trash.

I'm sorry, but if you want to be a physicist in order to be more important than someone else, you are mistaken, because you won't be.

 

[0rthodontist]

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that physics is the most important science, except historically where of course it is. I would say that honor goes to artificial intelligence at the moment.

 

[Line]

First thing you know the easier things are the more complex they are.


I always wonder who would be better off, businessman trying to a scientest's job or a scientest trying to do a businessman's job.

 

[Poop-Loops]

Neither. Different thinking patterns and goals. I would absolutely HATE to be a business person. The whole concept makes me cringe. Being a part-time salesperson is bad enough. Doing it full time on a huge scale would make me want to commit suicide. Tiptoeing around problems, making up excuses, and outright lying are the bread and butter of businesspeople. I hate that. If I ever start some physics/techinology related business, I will fire anybody who tries to do that and will FORCE people to b!tchslap me if I do.

Then again, if a businessman sees all those numbers and letters and symbols, he will pee his pants.