http://t3x.org/iq/academia.html

Academia

Alas, whatever you write, somebody will always disagree strongly, so here is the more differentiated point of view.

Of course, Academia in its current form has is obvious shortcomings:

Now imagine a university go a different path: no publication pressure, no funding pressure, intellectual honesty as their primary virtue, subsequently lots of negative results, but also no replication problems, and curricula that focus on slow and thorough research and hence are not in demand in the business world. What do you think would happen? How many students would that university have? How would the public view them?

Of course, science is in dire need of such an institution, but in the current cultural and intellectual climate I am afraid that it would only marginalize itself, leading to a sad dilemma: work badly under the given constraints or perish. Given this choice, Academia works as well as it can.


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