Comments on: How Much Do Biotech Workers Really Earn? Maybe Not as Much as Politicians Say

By: David Lukas

David Lukas — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:41:38 +0000

I understand this is kind of just a “hobby” study, not a bona fide academic survey, but there are a lot of problems with the methodology. Yes, median is “less prone” to skew from outliers than average. But outliers are important to the results! The Pareto principle applies here too–those big numbers at the far right of the distribution are still real dollars that go into the economy, so to me, the average is much more meaningful than the median.

The sample is also not random. In a down economy, companies are less likely to be investing in high-salary senior people, which would explain why the job postings are for lower-salary positions. Furthermore, who knows what kind of selection bias is introduced by only looking at numbers from the 10% of respondents who agree to answer your questions (i.e., the more senior the open position, the more valuable the time of the hiring manager, and thus the less willing they are to participate in the survey… etc.).

Ultimately the $81k figure is much more plausible to me.

By: Elizabeth Frick

Elizabeth Frick — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:57:47 +0000

What a superb example of clear, understandable technical writing about statistical data. I’m studying statistics in preparation for taking an editing exam, and I completely understood all of your text, especially the statistical part. However, if I weren’t studying statistics right now, I still could have understood what you wrote. Great job!

By: scientist

scientist — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:06:21 +0000

“Pricey graduate school educations”

Grad school for most science students is free, actually you get a stipend, and tuition waived in most cases.

By: What We’re Reading | On the Radar...

What We’re Reading | On the Radar... — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:47:53 +0000

[...] average figure cited for bioscience workers’ salaries has been $81,499. A new study discussed in this article on Xconomy calls into question Washington’s big payday and suggests that bioscience jobs in the average for [...]