Tag: Tenure
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Since I’m always…
Since I’m always yammering about tenure, I should mention this story, even though I don’t have enough info to mention it intelligently! News this week includes a university chancellor in Wisconsin who was fired for making porn videos with his wife. He’s suing on free speech grounds. I doubt that the suit will succeed. He…
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Good clarifier
Nate Silver, the meta-pollster, writes a great clarifier on the current positions, and the current trends, of political labels. He does an especially good job describing the Woke category. Here he gets close to a major fact about universities but doesn’t see it or doesn’t say it: = = = = = START QUOTE: Social…
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Proves my point
The Christians are bashing the pres of Harvard for doing EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANTED HER TO DO until right now. Before October they were bashing university presidents for opposing free speech. Now the Harvard pres is supporting free speech as the Christians wanted, but supporting it for people the Christians hate. This idiocy proves my…
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Bigger point
Anton Howe writes a VERY long and detailed critique of the failed process of peer review in tech history. The specific paper in question deals with an obscure aspect of iron work. The writers were clearly aiming for a standard elite political goal, and the journal, following modern practice, amplified the political goal instead of…
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Anderson and Foy
A Redditor in Europe is complaining that universities are becoming more like secondary schools. Previously the Euro tradition put all the weight on the test. If you aced the final test it didn’t matter whether you attended the lectures. Now they’re requiring attendance at every class. I don’t know if his complaint is valid, but…
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Useful timeline and landmark
Denyse points to this article about peer review. It’s headlined as a call for transformation, but it starts from a fake premise. The authors are puzzled that peer review doesn’t do what it was “supposed to do”. They do show a beautifully exponential timeline of the tenure fraud, and they bring out an important landmark…
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Simpler answer
Denyse notes an article showing that research grants are already being written by ChatGPT: = = = = = START QUOTE: A 2023 Nature survey of 1,600 researchers found that more than 25% use AI to help them write manuscripts and that more than 15% use the technology to help them write grant proposals. Some…
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What for?
Tara Henley, former CBC reporter who turned independent, interviews Eric Kaufmann. He’s trying to set up a School of Heterodox Social Science within an existing British college. He offers a balanced and rational approach to the whole mess of Cancel and Woke and such, recognizing that censorship and orthodoxy are permanent in academia. As I…
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Kellogg and Batya
A Reddit thread about ‘secrets of jobs’ delved into some interesting details about political staff. The fact that staffers run everything is NOT a secret. It’s well known and often discussed, but never mentioned in mainstream media or advertising. Successful politicians start as staffers, then move up to the “elected” role as manager of staff.…
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What’s the diff?
Via NewSuperstitionist: Researchers find that Chat wants to agree with the questioner. = = = = = START QUOTE: This tendency, which the researchers call sycophancy, can manifest as agreement with left or right-leaning political views, thoughts on current affairs or any other topic raised in conversation. In some tests, the team created simple mathematical…
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Worth reading
Denyse at MindMatters points to an eminently wise essay on AI. Denyse: Others are worried that ChatGPT will detract from a “love of learning” and “critical thinking,” according to Bloomberg. The new AI tool has cast a wrench in plagiarism detection and poses even philosophical questions about what education should be FOR. According to college…
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When you’re a peasant
Mattingly at GetReligion is covering the elite/peasant divide with an emphasis on the consequences for journalism. Most of his commentary is fairly realistic. He says one thing that I’m not hearing from other commentators: Christian churches and colleges are not doing a good job of preparing youngsters to ENTER the elite places. I think he’s…
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Massive and instant
The academic side of social science has not produced any good knowledge in at least 100 years. It produces lots of evil (training CIA torturers, assisting NSA surveillers) but mostly churns out trivial and blatantly wrong nonsense. A fine example of the latter is circulating this week. Some “scientist” has declared that most people don’t…
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Boom in quantity = bust in quality
Denyse asks if there’s a rise in dishonesty and cheating in academia. I doubt it. Primarily there has been a huge rise in PUBLISHED UNITS since tenure and grants dominated academia in 1970. Grad students and new profs are required to churn out huge QUANTITIES of papers, and the only way to get there is…
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Dubious, obvious
Three hot decisions by the Supremes today. One is dubious, the second wildly obvious, the third meaningless. = = = = = Dubious: They said Biden couldn’t forgive student loans. There’s no principle involved at all. Student loan programs already include forgiveness when the student meets certain conditions. If you become a teacher in a…
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