Academia has always been, and always will be, about new knowledge. The article laments the pursuit of citations but fails to note that it is today's primary qua

Academia has always been, and always will be, about new knowledge. The article laments the pursuit of citations but fails to note that it is today's primary quantitative measure of new knowledge - though imperfect. "Improving society" as academia's objective will have its own set of misaligned incentives, potentially much worse than the pursuit of "academic kudos". How would this be measured?