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Who were these "populist politicians" exactly? I don't remember any of them ever talking about university research. It'd actually be great to have some politic

by nvm0n2 3y ago

Who were these "populist politicians" exactly? I don't remember any of them ever talking about university research. It'd actually be great to have some politicians who ridicule frivolous academic research. It's not like there's a shortage of it especially in the humanities and social sciences (where there's no such thing as basic research anyway). Alas, their attentions are all elsewhere.

omginternets 3y ago
>where there's no such thing as basic research anyway Did you mean "applied research"? >It's not like there's a shortage of it especially in the humanities and social sciences (where there's no such thing as basic research anyway). Careful where you cast stones, my friend. There is a lot of bullshit in software engineering, too. Gestures towards pile of discarded JS frameworks...
- rplst8 3y ago
  Was the development of those JS frameworks funded with federal tax dollars?
  - omginternets 3y ago
    That's a separate point (and we'd be largely in agreement, I suspect). In fact, I'm sure you've noticed the heaps of government-funded software trash.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  No I meant basic research. Academia justifies itself by claiming it's necessary to do "basic", "foundational", "fundamental" or "blue sky" research in a non-commercial setting, because supposedly corporations can't afford to do long term research that doesn't have immediate application. So in this model academic scientists develop a foundation of firm and rigorous theory about how nature works, publish a literature on it for the good of all mankind, and then shorter term applied research is done by companies to derive practical insights from that literature. That model doesn't seem right, because there are lots of corporate research programmes into fundamental theory that were/are lavishly funded despite a decade+ of no ROI, most obviously at the moment AI. But let's put that aside and pretend it's true. Problem is that humanities and social studies don't produce a body of theory on which anything can be built. Humanities produces only critical theory, which despite the name is more like a belief system than a scientific theory. The social studies produce a lot of that too, but even outside critical theory their output is just a giant pile of random thought bubbles and mini-studies to try and prove them. There's nothing much linking these studies, no frameworks that make reliable new predictions. Instead we get an endless stream of Just So claims that fall apart when people try to replicate them, but even failure to replicate doesn't have any impact because there's nothing underneath them to be invalidated. At most it's shown that this one specific paper isn't reliable. Contrast to something like physics where the work of academic theorists is all about coming up with unified theories of everything, which could then be used to develop practical applications. Einstein is super famous because he invalidated large swathes of theory and opened up space for new theory to be developed. Social studies don't have any equivalent to Einstein and can't by design.
ahazred8ta 3y ago
US Senator William Proxmire (D) and his Golden Fleece awards protesting odd-sounding projects https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Fleece_Award https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Fleece_Award
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  That does sound close but Proxmire doesn't seem like a populist politician, the Golden Fleece dates from the 1980s, and it wasn't specific to academia. A lot of the research was funded by other parts of the civil service than the NSF, like: The Federal Aviation Administration was named for spending $57,800 on a study of the physical measurements of 432 airline stewardesses, including "distance from knee to knee while sitting", and "the politeal [sic] length of the buttocks."[19] Office of Education for spending $219,592 in a "curriculum package" to teach college students how to watch television. Amusingly it does seem to have hit the mark. A former NSF director even lied about the awards to try and discredit it! Too bad this is all so long ago. I was asking more about the present day, as it seems like that was the implication of the comment being replied to. Where are all these populists with their modern version of the Golden Fleece awards?

by nvm0n2 3y ago

omginternets 3y ago

>where there's no such thing as basic research anyway Did you mean "applied research"? >It's not like there's a shortage of it especially in the humanities and social sciences (where there's no such thing as basic research anyway). Careful where you cast stones, my friend. There is a lot of bullshit in software engineering, too. Gestures towards pile of discarded JS frameworks...

rplst8 3y ago
Was the development of those JS frameworks funded with federal tax dollars?
- omginternets 3y ago
  That's a separate point (and we'd be largely in agreement, I suspect). In fact, I'm sure you've noticed the heaps of government-funded software trash.
nvm0n2 3y ago
No I meant basic research. Academia justifies itself by claiming it's necessary to do "basic", "foundational", "fundamental" or "blue sky" research in a non-commercial setting, because supposedly corporations can't afford to do long term research that doesn't have immediate application. So in this model academic scientists develop a foundation of firm and rigorous theory about how nature works, publish a literature on it for the good of all mankind, and then shorter term applied research is done by companies to derive practical insights from that literature. That model doesn't seem right, because there are lots of corporate research programmes into fundamental theory that were/are lavishly funded despite a decade+ of no ROI, most obviously at the moment AI. But let's put that aside and pretend it's true. Problem is that humanities and social studies don't produce a body of theory on which anything can be built. Humanities produces only critical theory, which despite the name is more like a belief system than a scientific theory. The social studies produce a lot of that too, but even outside critical theory their output is just a giant pile of random thought bubbles and mini-studies to try and prove them. There's nothing much linking these studies, no frameworks that make reliable new predictions. Instead we get an endless stream of Just So claims that fall apart when people try to replicate them, but even failure to replicate doesn't have any impact because there's nothing underneath them to be invalidated. At most it's shown that this one specific paper isn't reliable. Contrast to something like physics where the work of academic theorists is all about coming up with unified theories of everything, which could then be used to develop practical applications. Einstein is super famous because he invalidated large swathes of theory and opened up space for new theory to be developed. Social studies don't have any equivalent to Einstein and can't by design.

ahazred8ta 3y ago

US Senator William Proxmire (D) and his Golden Fleece awards protesting odd-sounding projects https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Fleece_Award https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Fleece_Award

nvm0n2 3y ago
That does sound close but Proxmire doesn't seem like a populist politician, the Golden Fleece dates from the 1980s, and it wasn't specific to academia. A lot of the research was funded by other parts of the civil service than the NSF, like: The Federal Aviation Administration was named for spending $57,800 on a study of the physical measurements of 432 airline stewardesses, including "distance from knee to knee while sitting", and "the politeal [sic] length of the buttocks."[19] Office of Education for spending $219,592 in a "curriculum package" to teach college students how to watch television. Amusingly it does seem to have hit the mark. A former NSF director even lied about the awards to try and discredit it! Too bad this is all so long ago. I was asking more about the present day, as it seems like that was the implication of the comment being replied to. Where are all these populists with their modern version of the Golden Fleece awards?