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I had a tenured faculty position at an R1 university and left it in part because of a completely dysfunctional institutional environment with no insight. My bes

I had a tenured faculty position at an R1 university and left it in part because of a completely dysfunctional institutional environment with no insight. My best friends include full professors at well-known institutions, though, and I've continued to be involved with academics and research. I'm frankly tired of science being characterized in terms of competitiveness and abuse. That's true, but it's deeper than that. It is now structurally corrupt, in the sense that nominal credit does not reflect actual contributions and results are often questionable or even fraudulent, and the incentives are structured to reward collecting new data that are very predictable rather than new ideas or exploring unknowns. The characterization of science as just being "stressful" or "competitive", as opposed to being broken and corrupt, does disservice and deflects from real change by implicitly putting the responsibility on those who are affected the most. It's as if you had a city full of crime, white collar as well as otherwise, and then discussed the problems in terms of victims being anxious, rather than the fact there's no police in the the city and the court system is corrupt.

EatingWithForks 3y ago
I think I developed a similar conclusion that research as a whole is corrupted when there was that CS student that committed suicide due being affected by paper-approval collusion agreements involving nearly all the prominent researchers in the field. Nothing was done about it, even though it directly contributed to someone's death. I had so much disgust for the field since then.
- extasia 3y ago
  I wasn't aware of this, do you have a link you could share?
  - jasonhong 3y ago
    I think it's referring to this case: https://huixiangvoice.medium.com/the-hidden-story-behind-the-suicide-phd-candidate-huixiang-chen-236cd39f79d3 https://huixiangvoice.medium.com/the-hidden-story-behind-the... And for outcomes, the paper in question was retracted and the professor involved resigned. However, I haven't seen updates regarding the review ring (where a bunch of peer reviewers collude). https://retractionwatch.com/2021/03/16/after-grad-student-suicide-misconduct-findings-university-suspends-professor/ https://retractionwatch.com/2021/03/16/after-grad-student-su... https://www.wuft.org/news/2021/04/23/university-of-florida-professor-resigns-amid-investigations-into-students-suicide/ https://www.wuft.org/news/2021/04/23/university-of-florida-p...
NeuNeurosis 3y ago
This echos so much of the world it seems right now.I have seen this in engineering, analytics, and the restaurant industry. New people and outsiders still have so much hope for what the paths they choose offer them and once they enter and progress are faced with the "city full of crime...(with) no police" and very little recourse. Engineers that are berated and bullied to output test results that conform to desired product specs, management that wants data that conforms to "projected" trends and bully analysts to "massage" the data accordingly, chefs that are told they have to work 12-16hr 5-6 days a week. These are just the examples that I have personal experience with. It seems that this structural corruption has everything to do with financial rewards and who holds the purse strings. The group/s that dole out the rewards seem to have played their hand miraculously and convinced everyone that this is the only way. As I write this it reminds me of threads I was reading 10 years ago about surgery and surgeons and what it took to become apart of that field. It was described as being fraught with super high stress, high precision, high physically demands such as super long shifts (24-48hrs) lack of sleep, and a huge drop out rate. So many of the posters from the industry were saying while it was toxic and terrible it produced world class surgeons and that culture of training and gatekeeping was what kept the profession the best in world. Would you say that possibly the people maintaining the "structurally corrupt" culture are doing it to maintain a perceived superiority and relevance both financially and socially? What about the political winds constantly undermining the output of the profession when it becomes politically expedient to do so? Do you have any ideas on what change would look like? What are some of the solutions that you and your friends have discussed?
nextos 3y ago
> It is now structurally corrupt, in the sense that nominal credit does not reflect actual contributions and results are often questionable or even fraudulent This is my experience as well, after working in many different departments. It's really sad. I could hardly summarize it better.

EatingWithForks 3y ago

I think I developed a similar conclusion that research as a whole is corrupted when there was that CS student that committed suicide due being affected by paper-approval collusion agreements involving nearly all the prominent researchers in the field. Nothing was done about it, even though it directly contributed to someone's death. I had so much disgust for the field since then.

extasia 3y ago
I wasn't aware of this, do you have a link you could share?
- jasonhong 3y ago
  I think it's referring to this case: https://huixiangvoice.medium.com/the-hidden-story-behind-the-suicide-phd-candidate-huixiang-chen-236cd39f79d3 https://huixiangvoice.medium.com/the-hidden-story-behind-the... And for outcomes, the paper in question was retracted and the professor involved resigned. However, I haven't seen updates regarding the review ring (where a bunch of peer reviewers collude). https://retractionwatch.com/2021/03/16/after-grad-student-suicide-misconduct-findings-university-suspends-professor/ https://retractionwatch.com/2021/03/16/after-grad-student-su... https://www.wuft.org/news/2021/04/23/university-of-florida-professor-resigns-amid-investigations-into-students-suicide/ https://www.wuft.org/news/2021/04/23/university-of-florida-p...

NeuNeurosis 3y ago

This echos so much of the world it seems right now.I have seen this in engineering, analytics, and the restaurant industry. New people and outsiders still have so much hope for what the paths they choose offer them and once they enter and progress are faced with the "city full of crime...(with) no police" and very little recourse. Engineers that are berated and bullied to output test results that conform to desired product specs, management that wants data that conforms to "projected" trends and bully analysts to "massage" the data accordingly, chefs that are told they have to work 12-16hr 5-6 days a week. These are just the examples that I have personal experience with. It seems that this structural corruption has everything to do with financial rewards and who holds the purse strings. The group/s that dole out the rewards seem to have played their hand miraculously and convinced everyone that this is the only way. As I write this it reminds me of threads I was reading 10 years ago about surgery and surgeons and what it took to become apart of that field. It was described as being fraught with super high stress, high precision, high physically demands such as super long shifts (24-48hrs) lack of sleep, and a huge drop out rate. So many of the posters from the industry were saying while it was toxic and terrible it produced world class surgeons and that culture of training and gatekeeping was what kept the profession the best in world. Would you say that possibly the people maintaining the "structurally corrupt" culture are doing it to maintain a perceived superiority and relevance both financially and socially? What about the political winds constantly undermining the output of the profession when it becomes politically expedient to do so? Do you have any ideas on what change would look like? What are some of the solutions that you and your friends have discussed?

nextos 3y ago

> It is now structurally corrupt, in the sense that nominal credit does not reflect actual contributions and results are often questionable or even fraudulent This is my experience as well, after working in many different departments. It's really sad. I could hardly summarize it better.