> Over three quarters of those who graduate with Ph.D.s never get a tenure track job[1], i.e. they never spend a single day doing what they trained to do.
Doing a PhD isn't training to get a tenure track job, and going into industry or teaching or whatever else you want in life is not a failure.
> Doing a Ph.D. in Anthropology is for people with parents or spouses willing to support them or who have independent means.
Yeah, all these millionaires are lining up to work in anthropology between trips on their yachts.
Do you not value studying where we've come from at all?
> Doing a PhD isn't training to get a tenure track job, and going into industry or teaching or whatever else you want in life is not a failure.
Would you say the equivalent to someone who spends six years trying to break into acting and gives up after that with very little to show for it? An Anthro Ph.D. is necessary for teaching Anthro. There are a very small number of other jobs in "industry" for which having one would be helpful but most of the people with those jobs got them through on the job training, not spending 4-10% of their lives studying. And a Ph.D. will not help you get a teaching job any more than a B.A. will.
You may not think that doing something other than academia after a Ph.D. is failure but career academics disagree and if you're doing a Ph.D. you're going to be surrounded by career academics for four years.
Doing a Ph.D. in Anthropology is like spending six years of your life trying to break into acting, or trying to go pro as a video gamer. Almost everyone will fail to get what they wanted after expending enormous time and effort to do so.
I am currently studying myself. I don't value studying and I despise credentialism. I value learning. I don't see why people should be lied to about there being jobs when they don't exist. I don't support pyramid schemes. I don't think encouraging people to do something as damaging to their mental health as doing a Ph.D. in Anthro is moral when the cost is so high and the chance of a good outcome is negligible.
This online community is filled with perochial assholes. Studying the origins of human assholes might one day help us deal with the asshole in us, or at least the asshole in the other.
For instance, does confronting asshole behavior diminish or enflame the behavior.
Doing a PhD isn't training to get a tenure track job, and going into industry or teaching or whatever else you want in life is not a failure.
> Doing a Ph.D. in Anthropology is for people with parents or spouses willing to support them or who have independent means.
Yeah, all these millionaires are lining up to work in anthropology between trips on their yachts.
Do you not value studying where we've come from at all?