alain_bonaf - 9:32 am on Aug 5, 2004 (gmt 0)

>I have checked our a few other places like hedge funds and they too seem to require PhD degrees, especially in maths and physics. The work does not require that much deeper expertise, though. So why this requirement. If anybody knows about the US university system, unlike many other fields, PhD programs in hard sciences tend to attract a particlular group of people - sex and ethnicity-wise.

How old are you? Don't you have experience enough to know that society hasn't much to do with justice or competency? I don't say that PHDs are worthless because that would then apply to me :) - I have a huge background - I say it is true that some people without PHDs but with experience can outperform PHDs. I have hired people in my former firm the advantage of PHD is that they are generalist enough to be flexible to be able to learn new things whereas non PHDs tend to be focused on their specialty and seem to learn new concepts less easily. For example methodological stuffs like RUP (Rational Unified Process - see IBM's site) are rather abstract and non-PHD people don't understand the interest of such methodology which in truth can well be turned into techno-bureaucracy but in the principle is worth. Of course generalities always suffer from exceptions.

Now consider this: if people weren't snob by nature would this seggration persist? What if as a nonPHD you were a PHD and vice-versa? Would you say the same thing? People defend their OWN SELF interest that's what my experience has learnt. They disguise it under justice but they really don't care much about that: how many care about dramatic injustice that happen all around the world? We live in a world of hypocrisis.