You're quantifying experience without considering the vast amount of variables, and using a hard science as your example without considering that there are plenty of other disciplines in which the PhD experience is vastly different. The argument is not easily transferred.

2 more years experience isn't necessarily 'more experience' if you have a crap go of it. In fact, those two years could potentially be a waste depending on how it pans out.

You say it's objective, but then contradict yourself by saying it's highly individual. Would that not then suggest that the experience is not quantifiably objective, but rather, subjective? Wouldn't it also depend highly on the discipline, the school, the graduate program, the supervisor(s), access to resources and equipment, access to funding, access to quality mentorship, access to support systems, the individual's personal life and whether or not they have disabilities, experience systematic discrimination, have family commitments or family breakdowns, have health issues?

All of those things will impact how a person performs in their program and the quality of experience gained (and really, it's quality over quantity). 2 more years might *seem* like more, but this is only a surface examination. It doesn't say anything about the quality, or what the person can do/has done.

If you take a bachelor degree as an example, many students get 3 and 4 year bachelor degrees. But not all of them will have the same quality of education or 'experience.' It might be perceived as such, and yes students will come out with more experience, but more isn't better, it has no meaning if you don't consider what this experience actually looks like.

I might have a PhD but that doesn't say that much about the quality of my work. My research output, my ability to attract grants, my projects, my teaching, all of that says much more than a very basic quantifiable measure of how long I went to school, which is what you are basing your argument on.

I think TreeofLife's statement about their MA experience is a good example of what I'm taking about regarding the quality. They had the MSc but felt that a research based one would have been much more useful and effective than a taught one. This is indicative of what I mean by the quality, and not quantity of experience. The MSc was still very helpful, but not as much as perhaps a research based one.

This experience can also be gained in other settings and not necessarily in a university. A lot of my research experience came externally, providing a more rounded approach to social science than a strictly academic one.

But I agree that doing an MA or MSc is still beneficial and more helpful, it gives you more time to become acquainted with the academic life, something that I had to quickly catch up on and am still working out. However, because I have experience in industry, I can more readily leave academia if I needed to, whereas I know some individuals struggle to make that transition.

So at the end of the day, a fast-track PhD has benefits and disadvantages, and that perhaps if one chooses to fast-track, they should seek alternate means to gain the experience necessary regarding what they want to do. But I disagree completely that someone without a MA/MSc will perform worse than someone with one. An educational qualification doesn't necessarily tell the whole story of what a person is capable of.

The worst case scenario would be that your are as qualified after a master as you were before. In most cases you will be more experienced in terms of theoretical knowledge and practical skills like writing or lab work. It is unecessary to argue about that. That's just how it is.

It is 100 percent objective and it doesn't really matter if hard science or not. Experience is experience. The worst case is, again, that you did not gain any useful experience but nevertheless, even then you would be as good as your bachelor-self. The argumentation that there are bad master graduates out there does not really make sense. A pilot that has 10 years of experience is not necessarily a better pilot than one with 5 years experience but he will definitely be a better pilot as he was five years ago. I wrote highly individual because there are people who are just "bad" scientsts. They are bad if they start a PhD directly after a bachelor and they are bad if they start a PhD after their master. Why would master student that is not asqualified as a bachelor student be the proof for the uselessness of a master degree? I would bet that you would make a even better PhD performance if you would have done 2 years of masters before. There is just no plausbile argument why you wouldn't. Why would that depend on supervisors, funding, mentorship or graduate schools? That doesn't make sense at all and is completely unrealted to personal circumstances. If you work five years in a field you are more experienced as if you would have stopped after 3 years. In whoich scenario could you gain less than nothing? You make the mistake to compare yourself to others and that is not what I wanted to do. You (you personally!) will be always better with more exerience compared to the less experienced you. An exception is maybe if you get hit by a rock at the end of the masters and suddenly forget what you learned during the bachelor degree, but in general you will perform better ;) I don't really understand why anyone would argue about that.