3 ms·

> My point is that this is not something that should just be expected to run its course because it’s a “natural law”, and is thus some evidence of some fundamen

> My point is that this is not something that should just be expected to run its course because it’s a “natural law”, and is thus some evidence of some fundamental truth. What I'm missing is what alternative you see. Sure, we could turn the relationship between input and output on its head and watch what happens when whoever crosses the finish line last wins the race. But what does that achieve? > We do add rules to many (most?) sporting events, largely out of ethics. We add constraints so we can compare the abilities, and that gets too hard to be useful when we don't focus on something. If we had a new sport, not unlike a decathlon, but testing every skill imaginable, I'm sure we'd find the field much closer together, and we'd probably have quite a few surprises, but it would take forever and wouldn't really tell us anything. Constraining it with rules allows for comparison. Yes, of course, we could constrain researchers as well by how much time they were allowed to work, or which books they were allowed to read, and how often they are allowed to look something up etc, but we're not really interested in some very narrow, hyper-specific "research" skill, it's not a hobby, we want results. Ergo we look at who gets the most results, or gets them the fastest, or cracks the hardest puzzles, whatever you may use to compare researchers.

bumby 6y ago
As someone more eloquently stated above, I think the measure is more a symptom than a root cause. So the alternative would require more systematic change. In many ways, academia seems broken. Areas that seem to contribute are 1) the endless push for publication regardless of quality, 2) the disingenuous recruiting of PhD candidates in light of the limited positions available, especially as tenured professors and 3) the way colleges have been run as businesses built on debt in the last few decades. These are not based in “natural law” but human convention. I think those three areas combine to create students with massive debt and limited prospects, ripe to be taken advantage of under the guise of meritocratic competition. What I’m seeing is that people may interpret success in this area as a natural outcome of what “just is” rather than the byproduct of a broken system.

bumby 6y ago

As someone more eloquently stated above, I think the measure is more a symptom than a root cause. So the alternative would require more systematic change. In many ways, academia seems broken. Areas that seem to contribute are 1) the endless push for publication regardless of quality, 2) the disingenuous recruiting of PhD candidates in light of the limited positions available, especially as tenured professors and 3) the way colleges have been run as businesses built on debt in the last few decades. These are not based in “natural law” but human convention. I think those three areas combine to create students with massive debt and limited prospects, ripe to be taken advantage of under the guise of meritocratic competition. What I’m seeing is that people may interpret success in this area as a natural outcome of what “just is” rather than the byproduct of a broken system.