4 ms·

> My take of the core issue is the changing of science from an ethics and reputation based institution into a neoliberal bean counting paper industry. Saying i

by vladms 3y ago

> My take of the core issue is the changing of science from an ethics and reputation based institution into a neoliberal bean counting paper industry. Saying it was an "ethics ... based institution" is challenging for me - it implies right and wrong, which requires someone to decide what is right and what is wrong. Saying it was "reputation based" is even worst - lots of things got delayed because "reputable scientists" were not ready to embrace a change of paradigm. Sciences as a system was and is constantly evolving and had many issues before and it has many issues now. Generally it evolved in a direction to maximize knowledge acquisition, and had to deal with the social structures at that time (ex: don't get at stake for you theories). If it is in a bean counting phase might not be that bad in the grand scheme of things, but should not get stuck here either.

jampekka 3y ago
> Saying it was an "ethics ... based institution" is challenging for me - it implies right and wrong, which requires someone to decide what is right and what is wrong. Ethics here don't mean anything metaphysical. They mean something like "professional ethics" or even "taking pride of your work". More generally some shared (and maybe internalized) view of what's good/acceptable/bad behavior in a community. E.g. in medicine this is/was sort of codified in the hippocratic oath. In such a system reputation stems (at least ideally) from how well the actors (individual or institutional) behave in terms of these ethics. This of course has its own set of problems and may lead to (other) forms of corruption. But IMHO it's less bad than the neoliberal model where individual actors should focus on their individual career success "by any means necessary" and just trust that "science is self correcting".

4 ms·

> My take of the core issue is the changing of science from an ethics and reputation based institution into a neoliberal bean counting paper industry. Saying i

by vladms 3y ago

jampekka 3y ago
> Saying it was an "ethics ... based institution" is challenging for me - it implies right and wrong, which requires someone to decide what is right and what is wrong. Ethics here don't mean anything metaphysical. They mean something like "professional ethics" or even "taking pride of your work". More generally some shared (and maybe internalized) view of what's good/acceptable/bad behavior in a community. E.g. in medicine this is/was sort of codified in the hippocratic oath. In such a system reputation stems (at least ideally) from how well the actors (individual or institutional) behave in terms of these ethics. This of course has its own set of problems and may lead to (other) forms of corruption. But IMHO it's less bad than the neoliberal model where individual actors should focus on their individual career success "by any means necessary" and just trust that "science is self correcting".