The moral and intellectual decline of American academic research
Link here. This well documented essay outlines how federal government funding has poisoned American academic research, and if we do nothing to fix it, will only be another precursor of a coming dark age.
My experiences at four research universities and as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research fellow taught me that the relentless pursuit of taxpayer funding has eliminated curiosity, basic competence, and scientific integrity in many fields.
Yet, more importantly, training in “science” is now tantamount to grant-writing and learning how to obtain funding. Organized skepticism, critical thinking, and methodological rigor, if present at all, are afterthoughts. Thus, our nation’s institutions no longer perform their role as Eisenhower’s fountainhead of free ideas and discovery. Instead, American universities often produce corrupt, incompetent, or scientifically meaningless research that endangers the public, confounds public policy, and diminishes our nation’s preparedness to meet future challenges.
The essay focuses on how the lure of tax dollars has warped and corrupted medical research, but anyone with any knowledge of almost all other fields of science that now depend on federal funding will recognize the same problems.
Many of the stories the author documents include major universities (Duke, Cornell, Harvard) that not only have been producing lots of studies have required retraction or included documented fraud, but have also not done anything to punish those involved.
Overall, this study, along with the many examples of totalitarian attempts to silence dissent on American campuses, proves that these institutions no longer any public funding. At a minimum, high school students should consider other colleges. At best, they should be shut down.
Hat tip reader John Jossy.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Link here. This well documented essay outlines how federal government funding has poisoned American academic research, and if we do nothing to fix it, will only be another precursor of a coming dark age.
My experiences at four research universities and as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research fellow taught me that the relentless pursuit of taxpayer funding has eliminated curiosity, basic competence, and scientific integrity in many fields.
Yet, more importantly, training in “science” is now tantamount to grant-writing and learning how to obtain funding. Organized skepticism, critical thinking, and methodological rigor, if present at all, are afterthoughts. Thus, our nation’s institutions no longer perform their role as Eisenhower’s fountainhead of free ideas and discovery. Instead, American universities often produce corrupt, incompetent, or scientifically meaningless research that endangers the public, confounds public policy, and diminishes our nation’s preparedness to meet future challenges.
The essay focuses on how the lure of tax dollars has warped and corrupted medical research, but anyone with any knowledge of almost all other fields of science that now depend on federal funding will recognize the same problems.
Many of the stories the author documents include major universities (Duke, Cornell, Harvard) that not only have been producing lots of studies have required retraction or included documented fraud, but have also not done anything to punish those involved.
Overall, this study, along with the many examples of totalitarian attempts to silence dissent on American campuses, proves that these institutions no longer any public funding. At a minimum, high school students should consider other colleges. At best, they should be shut down.
Hat tip reader John Jossy.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I have noted that, in general, and in education and health care in particular, that the more resources available to a system, the more the system focuses on process at the expense of goals.
Yep, it’s another application of Jerry Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy.
And on the other side, defending things, I’ll point to
“https://aeon.co/essays/higher-education-in-the-us-is-driven-by-a-lust-for-glory”
One more, which will let readers blame either governments or capitalists:
“https://www.salon.com/2020/02/02/the-art-of-scientific-deception-how-corporations-use-mercenary-science-to-evade-regulation/”
I disagree with your first link mike.
“Fear works by holding the threat of firing over the heads of workers in order to ensure that they stay in line: Do it my way or you’re out of here.”
It is this fact in academia which has pushed the AGW theory to the point of some saying that it is”Settled Science” which is absolutely incorrect.
It is fear of offending which has lead to the discrimination of conservative thought on campuses.
I wouldn’t trust anything from Solon.
Headline from The Babylon Bee:
“Yale Med School To Stop Teaching Medicine Discovered By White Males”
Phill O noted: “It is fear of offending which has lead to the discrimination of conservative thought on campuses.”
However, it is perfectly acceptable to offend conservatives, just not the other way around. After all, progessives define conservatives as intolerant of any thought other than their own, so any thinking that deviates from progressive thinking should be mocked, shut down, and eliminated. Therefore, the science is settled, because the progressives say it is. There is no need to debate the issue, because logic has nothing to do with it, only emotions, such as being offended. And it is perfectly acceptable to offend conservatives.
Meanwhile, I heard on the radio hourly news, this morning, that a scientist is predicting a little ice age until 2050. I found this on the interweb, from a professor of mathematics at Northumbria University in Newcastle, UK:
https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/news-events/news/2015/07/northumbria-academic-says-little-ice-age-could-hit-earth-in-2020/
…
I suppose it is not coming from a progressive AGW scientist, so it will be mocked, shut down, and eliminated. I wonder how this hypothesis made the news? The article says it is news in many countries.
Speaking of declining morals and intellect in American academic research, this may not extend to the UK. Prof Zharkova has confidence enough to encourage others to check her work:
Unlike that East Anglia guy who would rather lose his tree-ring data than let anyone check it — and then did lose the data when others insisted upon checking it. Since he is a progressive, no one is allowed to question his motives, because that may offend him.
Hmm. East Anglia is in the UK, too. Maybe morals and scientific integrity are declining around the world. I wonder whether it is dependent upon whether or not someone can offend the scientist, because he is emotional rather than intellectual. Maybe part of that emotion is greed, and this results in a pursuit of government grant money rather than pursuit of actual knowledge of the world around us.