Who Needs Job Security?

An editorial in last week's Science pointed out the long wait that young investigators endure before doing the science they are interested in. This sparked a discussion over at Adaptive Complexity, where a blog post adds, "Not only does this long 'training' period have negative effects on creativity, it damages morale." The post adds that during that training period, researchers receive little in terms of financial rewards, making it difficult to save for a house, children's college, or retirement. At another blog, Thomas Mailund suggests that young scientists could benefit from "young researcher groups" that would allow them to work on their own problems for a few years while knowing they had a job.