If anything, the molecular biologists I know are discouraged by the size of the problem being solved relative to the number of people working on it-
The main question is the value of a marginal molecular biologist chipping away at the problems with current methods.
All those new knowledge about genes we got through the human genome project produces few promising leads for new drugs. Big Pharma companies sit on large pile of cash at a time where the interest rates are near zero and they buy back shares while laying off scientists.
Currently we don't know what 1/4 to 1/3 of the human genes do. Those where we do know a function might have additional functions. With a lot of hard work we might find out more functions, but that doesn't bring us much further. Few get a few new drug targets but drug targets aren't the limiting factor for drug discovery. Predicting which drugs actually help is the more important issues as clinical trials are really expensive. Most drugs put into clinical trials fail.
Apart from the actual use of the science, progress is hold back by poor ability to replicate findings. Some of that is because scientists don't work properly but it can also be that the monoclonal antibody you order today is not the same as the one that you ordered a month ago even through you ordered it from the same lab and it has the same label.
Then even if your finding is correct and you publish it, that doesn't mean that your paper is going to be read. The language in which papers are written is very complicated and not easily interpretable by computers.
This all hits the nail on the head I think. The marginal value of my PhD is, I'm convinced, at most zero, and perhaps negative, because it adds to the noise. The replicability of papers is significantly hindered by lack of automation, to my mind.
Also, saying that we don't know what 1/4 to 1/3 of human genes do is wildly optimistic. Better to say we have some idea what 2/3 of them do.
I'm a PhD student wrapping up a doctorate in Genomics. I started in biology and switched to analysis because I have stupid hands. My opinion of my field is low. Working in it has, on on the bright side, taught me some statistics and programming. I'm roughly upper 5% on math ability, relative to my college class. Once upon a time I could solve ODEs, now most of my math is gone. However, I'm good with R, and can talk intelligently about mixed linear model, bayesianism vs. frequentism and about genetics, biochemistry and developmental biology. It's also taught me that huge segments of the biology literature are a mixture of non reproducible crap, and uninteresting, street-light science, dressed up as progress with deceptive plots and statistics. I think a large part of my lack of enthusiasm comes from my belief that advances in artificial intelligence are going to make human-run biology irrelevant before long. I think the ultimate problems we're tackling (predicting genotype from phenotype, reliable manipulation of biology, curing cancer/aging/death) are insoluble with our current methods - we need effective robots to do the experiments, and A.I. to interpret the results.
Here's what I want to ask the lesswrong hivemind:
1)Do you agree? Do you think there are important problems being tackled now in biology that someone with my skillset could be useful in? E.g. analyzing the brain with genetics to try and get a handle on how it's algorithms work? (I'm skeptical of this bottom up approach to the brain myself)
2)Do you think there are areas closer to the AI problem (or say, cryonics...) I could be usefully working on?
Sorry for bothering you with my personal problems, but I recall a thread a while ago inviting this sort of thing, so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm leaning towards the default option right now, which is to do some more courses, so I can say, bluff my way through Hadoop and Java, and then see how much cash I can earn in a boring private sector job. However, I'd prefer to do something I find intrinsically interesting.
Edit: Thanks guys - this has already been helpful.