5 ms·
Remember the Sokal Hoax and Sokal Squared? Turns out that STEM also has all those problems. For profit universities pushing academics to "publish or perish" a
by tomlockwood 3y ago
Remember the Sokal Hoax and Sokal Squared?
Turns out that STEM also has all those problems.
For profit universities pushing academics to "publish or perish" are the real enemies here, for all disciplines.
- aetherson 3y agoI'm pretty sure that this Nobel Prize winner does not work at a for profit university.
- tomlockwood 3y agoJournals are also absolutely involved and incentivised.
- derbOac 3y agoFor what it's worth, I sort of read that as "universities incentivized to maximize profit or income", not literally formally for-profit universities. Sort of a biting remark about typical university motivations, not literal. Even if the poster didn't intend it that way, I think it could easily be read that way.
- croes 3y agoJust because it's non-profit doesn't mean it's not about money.
- dekhn 3y agoHe works at Johns Hopkins, which is a private university that works closely with a health system called Johns Hopkins and the Johns Hopkins hospital (the medical school). When you say "for profit", be aware that they definitely take money from the government and patients and use it to develop new intellectual property that generates large amounts of money for them (although I guess the "profit" from that doesn't benefit the shareholders). These "non-profits" have multi-billion dollar budgets and are highly "profitable" depending on how you like to define it. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/opinion/nonprofit-hospitals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/opinion/nonprofit-hospita... In these cases, the non-profits are given tax incentives provide a certain amount of community benefit.
- manquer 3y agoPublish or perish and other academic pressures are hardly unique to for profit or even non profit universities, even Government institutions have similar incentive models to get tenure or other advancements, it seems pretty universal ? Do you know of a study or citation about any academic research quality/quantity challenges that are found at a higher rate in for profit / non profit private institutions ?
- tomlockwood 3y agoTenure = money
- BeetleB 3y ago> Remember the Sokal Hoax and Sokal Squared? The Sokal Hoax, while famous, is not very notable. They did not even publish in a peer reviewed journal.
- bsdpufferfish 3y agoPublish or perish is primarily about peer competition and promotion, not pressure from admins. Teaching is the money maker.
- tomlockwood 3y agoIn order to get tenure people need to have published.
- bsdpufferfish 3y agobecause of competition with peers.
- red-iron-pine 3y agoThis is true but a critical difference is that STEM is a lot more falsifiable. Postmodern deconstruction lends itself to a million interpretations, but biological testing either works or doesn't, and inconclusive generally means it doesn't.