Both Kevin Sharpe and the commentators responding to his article on the Times Higher Education Supplement site make good points. On one hand, I sympathize with the idea that a PhD degree should not be an open-ended research program. On the other hand, if that is the case and much of the expectations surrounding PhD-level research have now been de facto transferred to post-doctoral fellowships, then universities worldwide  should acknowledge that explicitly as Dr. Sharpe suggests by formally requiring a post-doc for entry-level faculty positions . Similarly, if the standard of "significant and substantial contribution to existing knowledge" is to be enforced, then we must necessarily accept that the number of PhD's awarded each year will necessarily be small (there are only so many "significant and substantial" contributions that can be made to knowledge in each given  field at any given time). Tougher standards, meaning also higher failure/dropout rates, seem to conflict however with the push by governments everywhere to increase the number of doctorates every year, when a research doctorate in fact has never been meant to be a "mass degree" like an undergraduate bachelor's or a secondary school diploma ! 

 Perhaps the discussion on this talk page should serve to form the basis for a section on criticism of the modern PhD degree, which the Wikipedia article is lacking at the moment. What say you ?