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Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On November 08 2024 00:04 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 23:40 WombaT wrote:
Noob question but isn’t academia always going to have some kind of issues?
Not to say criticism is also never valid, but in some quarters there’s definitely a dismissal of certain realities and an expectation of almost perfection that is de facto impossible given certain constraints?
I’m unsure how it else elsewhere, but UK universities have definitely pivoted from centres of learning and research, to being quite commercially-driven entities. They are also the former, but the latter has become more prominent.
One big earner here are international students. Us locals are capped, but institutions can charge many multiples per international student they attract. There’s also the issue of how universities are ranked in various ways, so institutions actively target certain metrics so they can climb those tables and thus be more attractive.
One big hook is ‘hey you can do research here’, so quite a few do.
Much of this is rather anecdotal, cobbled together from a few people I know in various positions, but you do end up with quite a lot of research for research’s sake as a consequence. Because it’s mutually beneficial for student and institution to do that in this particular alignment of incentives.
Now I will add that my unnamed sources did stress this research wasn’t bullshit, or flawed or bogus or anything. Just not especially useful
I’m curious as to if this specific structural clash between the research and the commercial incentives is something you folks see in your various nations, or is more a UK-specific issue
If your institution is mid to low tier, you're just milking the international students for their money. They get given boring projects that will guarantee results so they can graduate. By definition, this means the research they're doing is not disruptive since the end result is pretty much expected. Note that the students themselves know exactly what they're getting into and normally just want to have a "degree from a US/UK university" so they can get onto a graduate programme elsewhere. You will find that high tier universities will not be doing this and the research carried out at all levels will be of high quality, innovative and potentially very disruptive. I've had master students that have produced papers that have accrued over 1,000 citations. That means that 1000 other research teams looked at the findings and went like "yeah, I will use this to explain or guide my own work".
Cheers, aye that makes quite a bit of sense.
An Oxbridge, Harvard or an MIT aren’t exactly lacking in reputation and prestige, by virtue of that they’ll attract the cream of the crop and can have them do interesting work.
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On November 07 2024 23:17 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 23:12 BlackJack wrote:On November 07 2024 22:50 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 22:27 Belisarius wrote:On November 07 2024 21:54 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 21:48 Belisarius wrote:On November 07 2024 21:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 20:43 Elroi wrote:On November 07 2024 20:19 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 20:15 Elroi wrote:[quote] And you can flip that coin around - it is easy to be a conformist leftist in academia. For example, just take a passage from Mein Kamp, switch the word "jews" to "men" send it in to a journal and you're done. Doing what everybody else is doing and just following established protocols is the surest way to never get any more funding to do research ever. You guys have no idea. I don't claim to know everything about that but I have managed to get some 100s of thousands of dollars in research funding. If you have done any funding application then you damn well know that disruptive research that challenges the status quo is more like to get funded, not less. The whole premise of these posts is flawed. I honestly don't think this is true. Yes, when you have already built a strong disruptive case, you are a rockstar. That's obvious. But the battle is long before that. Disruptive research is a path of very high resistance. You find a thread and pick at it, you lose it, you try again, eventually one catches and slowly, piece by piece, you unravel.... the thing that many of your potential sponsors built their career on. That first moment where you have nothing more than a hunch and the tip of the first thread between your fingernails, and you need to convince someone to fund your attempt to pull it.... that moment is extremely vulnerable. Especially when that thread is attached to the trousers of the eminent scientist who will assess your grant. It seems very naïve to assume that they will not try to stop you, whether maliciously or just because they believe in the thing you are unravelling so strongly that they can't even consider that you would be right. If it turns out you have the wrong thread, you have, at best, made yourself look dumb in front of people who will be assessing your work your entire career. At worst, you've made outright enemies of them. I know many people who've put themselves in a career cul de sac by doing this. My old supervisor certainly did. I do believe that in the hard sciences, the truth will eventually out. Eventually there will be some corollary discovery that opens the cracks, or some new microscope that makes it so you can go from the first thread to half a trouser-leg on the leftovers of some other grant, and then they can't stop you anymore. But a powerful dogmatist in a powerful position can slow this process very substantially. Academia is cut-throat at all levels. What you are describing is pretty much the pathway every professor has taken in every university worth doing research in. Nobody gives you anything for free and you don't get to be a professor if you didn't do something hugely innovative that disrupted (influenced) the field in some way. You literally will never progress to professor if this does not happen. And yes, your funding depends on the old dinosaurs on the panel that will keep on pushing their own research above all else. The system is very crooked and is heavily weighted towards people that are already established. You will never hear me defend the academic funding system -- it is so so so very shit. Nevertheless, it remains true that disruptive research that challenges the status quo is more likely to get funded than run of the mill, just doing the same old shit, kind of proposal. I think the difference is coming at it from the angle of a successful career, versus the angle of the successful case. Absolutely, most academics who get to the top will have done something disruptive along the way. They won their cases, and most of them made plenty of strategic enemies doing so. They likely also put down other cases they believed in that they saw as politically unwinnable. However, from the perspective of the case itself, perhaps being pursued by some dude at the second rung, absolutely convinced that a dogma is wrong, it doesn't really matter that some other person with a stronger CV, more political nous and a sexier field was successful in their own, different war with the establishment. That doesn't stop his own case being stepped on by a dinosaur, regardless of its actual merit. I understand your point now. You're arguing that disproving bad theories is how you succeed in science. I agree. I'm arguing that despite this, there are situations where the power structures of science and the shittiness of scientific funding can entrench a bad theory well past the point it should have been disproven. That's the system working as intended though. At some point, the approach that disrupts the status quo crops up, disrupts the field and a new status quo is achieved. Sure, there is always pushback, and sometimes it takes too long -- the crisis of reproducibility is a prime example -- but science always gets there in the end. It really does not require everyone to be perfect all the time. None of these posts really make a case for why doing disruptive research is going to get you blackballed or lose you research funding. Even if they were blackballed, science would still get there in the end. Indeed, people will always grudgingly publish their research even when it conflicts with their personal values. Scientists are pretty impressive that way.
No, I read a survey somewhere that said that around half of the researchers in the US wouldn’t present results that they thought would make society worse. I’ll try to dig up the reference when I have a computer at hand.
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On November 08 2024 00:28 sevencck wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2024 23:20 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2024 18:06 BlackJack wrote:On March 18 2024 11:34 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2024 07:52 BlackJack wrote:On March 18 2024 07:39 Sermokala wrote:On March 18 2024 06:57 BlackJack wrote:On March 18 2024 06:05 Gorsameth wrote:
You keep trying to imply Biden can't speak in full sentences.
I thought we dispelled that myth with the State of the Union. There's a difference between giving a once-a-year prepared speech that you have plenty of time to rehearse for than being on the campaign trail, answering questions and speaking off-script. Let's not pretend this is some hot take just because it's coming from me. It's a widely held opinion that Biden lacks the mental sharpness for another term. If you think that's untrue why don't you think his advisers do more to put him front and center to prove otherwise? Why do they decline interviews and press conferences? Why won't they commit to debates? Seems like his advisers agree more with me. Can you commit to us here that you think trump has more mental sharpness than biden? Just want to save it for when the dimentia gets even more out of control. Trump clearly has more mental sharpness right now than Biden. Not sure what you hope to accomplish by getting this on the record. You know that you can't rate the truthfulness of past statements based on some changes that may or may not happen in the future, right? On October 27 2023 00:58 KwarK wrote:This is a few days old now but I just saw Trump’s nuanced and reasonable speech in response to the Gaza attacks. + Show Spoiler + People who sympathize with this are sick, they're sick and they're evil and they're not going to be fixed. You're not going to make them into wonderful people one day. I didn't know you had flies in Iowa. I HATE FLIES! Now I'll get in trouble for saying that, cruelty to animals, no, it's true. You know I said the other day, wee I was at a place, it was a beautiful place, but they had like flies and I said "GET FLY PAPER" they said "they're not allowed to sell it anymore because of cruelty to animals" they actually said that but I don't know can you get fly paper it used to be great right but "you can't do that anymore sir it's cruelty". What the hell is going on with this country? https://youtube.com/shorts/yWD9T5J0vaQ?si=xPccA0ZcIk4EY2ntFound the snippet you’re quoting. A fly buzzes around him on stage so he does some half-serious ad libbing about flies while pandering to his base by implying that the red meat republicans can’t harm flies because of pussy liberal animal rights activists. Ok… that’s pretty on brand from Trump. Hardly incoherent. Once again this just reinforces my point. Trump gets up and talks off the cuff for hours on end and tweets every thought that comes through his mind. If Biden goes off script for 2 minutes it’s a disaster. It’s not incoherent, it’s deranged. You lost the presidency, the senate, the house, and the supreme court. You're losing the culture war and don't really even appear to understand why. Instead of listening, as you so evidently should, you continue to lecture. Who's deranged?
Just because a lot of people agree with you doesn't mean that you are right.
And just because another side is losing doesn't mean you win.
Currently, everybody loses. If that is good enough for you...
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On November 08 2024 00:38 Elroi wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 23:17 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 23:12 BlackJack wrote:On November 07 2024 22:50 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 22:27 Belisarius wrote:On November 07 2024 21:54 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 21:48 Belisarius wrote:On November 07 2024 21:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 20:43 Elroi wrote:On November 07 2024 20:19 EnDeR_ wrote:
[quote]
Doing what everybody else is doing and just following established protocols is the surest way to never get any more funding to do research ever. You guys have no idea.
I don't claim to know everything about that but I have managed to get some 100s of thousands of dollars in research funding. If you have done any funding application then you damn well know that disruptive research that challenges the status quo is more like to get funded, not less. The whole premise of these posts is flawed. I honestly don't think this is true. Yes, when you have already built a strong disruptive case, you are a rockstar. That's obvious. But the battle is long before that. Disruptive research is a path of very high resistance. You find a thread and pick at it, you lose it, you try again, eventually one catches and slowly, piece by piece, you unravel.... the thing that many of your potential sponsors built their career on. That first moment where you have nothing more than a hunch and the tip of the first thread between your fingernails, and you need to convince someone to fund your attempt to pull it.... that moment is extremely vulnerable. Especially when that thread is attached to the trousers of the eminent scientist who will assess your grant. It seems very naïve to assume that they will not try to stop you, whether maliciously or just because they believe in the thing you are unravelling so strongly that they can't even consider that you would be right. If it turns out you have the wrong thread, you have, at best, made yourself look dumb in front of people who will be assessing your work your entire career. At worst, you've made outright enemies of them. I know many people who've put themselves in a career cul de sac by doing this. My old supervisor certainly did. I do believe that in the hard sciences, the truth will eventually out. Eventually there will be some corollary discovery that opens the cracks, or some new microscope that makes it so you can go from the first thread to half a trouser-leg on the leftovers of some other grant, and then they can't stop you anymore. But a powerful dogmatist in a powerful position can slow this process very substantially. Academia is cut-throat at all levels. What you are describing is pretty much the pathway every professor has taken in every university worth doing research in. Nobody gives you anything for free and you don't get to be a professor if you didn't do something hugely innovative that disrupted (influenced) the field in some way. You literally will never progress to professor if this does not happen. And yes, your funding depends on the old dinosaurs on the panel that will keep on pushing their own research above all else. The system is very crooked and is heavily weighted towards people that are already established. You will never hear me defend the academic funding system -- it is so so so very shit. Nevertheless, it remains true that disruptive research that challenges the status quo is more likely to get funded than run of the mill, just doing the same old shit, kind of proposal. I think the difference is coming at it from the angle of a successful career, versus the angle of the successful case. Absolutely, most academics who get to the top will have done something disruptive along the way. They won their cases, and most of them made plenty of strategic enemies doing so. They likely also put down other cases they believed in that they saw as politically unwinnable. However, from the perspective of the case itself, perhaps being pursued by some dude at the second rung, absolutely convinced that a dogma is wrong, it doesn't really matter that some other person with a stronger CV, more political nous and a sexier field was successful in their own, different war with the establishment. That doesn't stop his own case being stepped on by a dinosaur, regardless of its actual merit. I understand your point now. You're arguing that disproving bad theories is how you succeed in science. I agree. I'm arguing that despite this, there are situations where the power structures of science and the shittiness of scientific funding can entrench a bad theory well past the point it should have been disproven. That's the system working as intended though. At some point, the approach that disrupts the status quo crops up, disrupts the field and a new status quo is achieved. Sure, there is always pushback, and sometimes it takes too long -- the crisis of reproducibility is a prime example -- but science always gets there in the end. It really does not require everyone to be perfect all the time. None of these posts really make a case for why doing disruptive research is going to get you blackballed or lose you research funding. Even if they were blackballed, science would still get there in the end. Indeed, people will always grudgingly publish their research even when it conflicts with their personal values. Scientists are pretty impressive that way. No, I read a survey somewhere that said that around half of the researchers in the US wouldn’t present results that they thought would make society worse. I’ll try to dig up the reference when I have a computer at hand.
If you asked me if I would publish research that I thought would make society worse, I'd say, hell naw.
If I spent 3 years busting my balls collecting data and triply veryfing my findings and re-analysing the thing every which way I could think of and still got a result that I believe would hurt society, I think I would just suck it up and publish it. I would probably hate myself, but science is a bitch and it doesn't care about your feelings and it is better to know than not to know.
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Stunning to me we haven't seen more of this "act like a fascist is taking over" from libs/Dems
Honestly I'm slowly coming to grips with US democracy's dying act being Dems so proud to peacefully hand power over to fascists. Starts to feel like a fitting end.
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Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On November 08 2024 00:38 Elroi wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 23:17 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 23:12 BlackJack wrote:On November 07 2024 22:50 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 22:27 Belisarius wrote:On November 07 2024 21:54 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 21:48 Belisarius wrote:On November 07 2024 21:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 20:43 Elroi wrote:On November 07 2024 20:19 EnDeR_ wrote:
[quote]
Doing what everybody else is doing and just following established protocols is the surest way to never get any more funding to do research ever. You guys have no idea.
I don't claim to know everything about that but I have managed to get some 100s of thousands of dollars in research funding. If you have done any funding application then you damn well know that disruptive research that challenges the status quo is more like to get funded, not less. The whole premise of these posts is flawed. I honestly don't think this is true. Yes, when you have already built a strong disruptive case, you are a rockstar. That's obvious. But the battle is long before that. Disruptive research is a path of very high resistance. You find a thread and pick at it, you lose it, you try again, eventually one catches and slowly, piece by piece, you unravel.... the thing that many of your potential sponsors built their career on. That first moment where you have nothing more than a hunch and the tip of the first thread between your fingernails, and you need to convince someone to fund your attempt to pull it.... that moment is extremely vulnerable. Especially when that thread is attached to the trousers of the eminent scientist who will assess your grant. It seems very naïve to assume that they will not try to stop you, whether maliciously or just because they believe in the thing you are unravelling so strongly that they can't even consider that you would be right. If it turns out you have the wrong thread, you have, at best, made yourself look dumb in front of people who will be assessing your work your entire career. At worst, you've made outright enemies of them. I know many people who've put themselves in a career cul de sac by doing this. My old supervisor certainly did. I do believe that in the hard sciences, the truth will eventually out. Eventually there will be some corollary discovery that opens the cracks, or some new microscope that makes it so you can go from the first thread to half a trouser-leg on the leftovers of some other grant, and then they can't stop you anymore. But a powerful dogmatist in a powerful position can slow this process very substantially. Academia is cut-throat at all levels. What you are describing is pretty much the pathway every professor has taken in every university worth doing research in. Nobody gives you anything for free and you don't get to be a professor if you didn't do something hugely innovative that disrupted (influenced) the field in some way. You literally will never progress to professor if this does not happen. And yes, your funding depends on the old dinosaurs on the panel that will keep on pushing their own research above all else. The system is very crooked and is heavily weighted towards people that are already established. You will never hear me defend the academic funding system -- it is so so so very shit. Nevertheless, it remains true that disruptive research that challenges the status quo is more likely to get funded than run of the mill, just doing the same old shit, kind of proposal. I think the difference is coming at it from the angle of a successful career, versus the angle of the successful case. Absolutely, most academics who get to the top will have done something disruptive along the way. They won their cases, and most of them made plenty of strategic enemies doing so. They likely also put down other cases they believed in that they saw as politically unwinnable. However, from the perspective of the case itself, perhaps being pursued by some dude at the second rung, absolutely convinced that a dogma is wrong, it doesn't really matter that some other person with a stronger CV, more political nous and a sexier field was successful in their own, different war with the establishment. That doesn't stop his own case being stepped on by a dinosaur, regardless of its actual merit. I understand your point now. You're arguing that disproving bad theories is how you succeed in science. I agree. I'm arguing that despite this, there are situations where the power structures of science and the shittiness of scientific funding can entrench a bad theory well past the point it should have been disproven. That's the system working as intended though. At some point, the approach that disrupts the status quo crops up, disrupts the field and a new status quo is achieved. Sure, there is always pushback, and sometimes it takes too long -- the crisis of reproducibility is a prime example -- but science always gets there in the end. It really does not require everyone to be perfect all the time. None of these posts really make a case for why doing disruptive research is going to get you blackballed or lose you research funding. Even if they were blackballed, science would still get there in the end. Indeed, people will always grudgingly publish their research even when it conflicts with their personal values. Scientists are pretty impressive that way. No, I read a survey somewhere that said that around half of the researchers in the US wouldn’t present results that they thought would make society worse. I’ll try to dig up the reference when I have a computer at hand.
That seems awfully high, and what people say they will do, and what they actually do doesn’t always match.
It’s also a very abstracted question with a particular conclusion baked in. ‘Will the thing I’m doing currently negatively impact society, hm I’m not sure’ in practice versus a hypothetical where you’re outright told that the consequences of your hypothetical study are negative.
Oppenheimer and his fellows on the Manhattan project famously rather grappled with the implications, and some had really different interpretations of what they were building. Some saw it as a pathway to global peace, some potential ruinous destruction and everything in between.
But that’s grappling with unknowns. Let’s say the Ghost of Nuclear Holocausts to Come visited from the future and showed everyone a nuclear extinction level event would occur within a century, I mean people probably aren’t keeping up working on that project.
But hey, await the link, sounds interesting.
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Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On November 08 2024 00:43 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2024 00:38 Elroi wrote:On November 07 2024 23:17 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 23:12 BlackJack wrote:On November 07 2024 22:50 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 22:27 Belisarius wrote:On November 07 2024 21:54 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 21:48 Belisarius wrote:On November 07 2024 21:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 20:43 Elroi wrote:
[quote]
I don't claim to know everything about that but I have managed to get some 100s of thousands of dollars in research funding. If you have done any funding application then you damn well know that disruptive research that challenges the status quo is more like to get funded, not less. The whole premise of these posts is flawed. I honestly don't think this is true. Yes, when you have already built a strong disruptive case, you are a rockstar. That's obvious. But the battle is long before that. Disruptive research is a path of very high resistance. You find a thread and pick at it, you lose it, you try again, eventually one catches and slowly, piece by piece, you unravel.... the thing that many of your potential sponsors built their career on. That first moment where you have nothing more than a hunch and the tip of the first thread between your fingernails, and you need to convince someone to fund your attempt to pull it.... that moment is extremely vulnerable. Especially when that thread is attached to the trousers of the eminent scientist who will assess your grant. It seems very naïve to assume that they will not try to stop you, whether maliciously or just because they believe in the thing you are unravelling so strongly that they can't even consider that you would be right. If it turns out you have the wrong thread, you have, at best, made yourself look dumb in front of people who will be assessing your work your entire career. At worst, you've made outright enemies of them. I know many people who've put themselves in a career cul de sac by doing this. My old supervisor certainly did. I do believe that in the hard sciences, the truth will eventually out. Eventually there will be some corollary discovery that opens the cracks, or some new microscope that makes it so you can go from the first thread to half a trouser-leg on the leftovers of some other grant, and then they can't stop you anymore. But a powerful dogmatist in a powerful position can slow this process very substantially. Academia is cut-throat at all levels. What you are describing is pretty much the pathway every professor has taken in every university worth doing research in. Nobody gives you anything for free and you don't get to be a professor if you didn't do something hugely innovative that disrupted (influenced) the field in some way. You literally will never progress to professor if this does not happen. And yes, your funding depends on the old dinosaurs on the panel that will keep on pushing their own research above all else. The system is very crooked and is heavily weighted towards people that are already established. You will never hear me defend the academic funding system -- it is so so so very shit. Nevertheless, it remains true that disruptive research that challenges the status quo is more likely to get funded than run of the mill, just doing the same old shit, kind of proposal. I think the difference is coming at it from the angle of a successful career, versus the angle of the successful case. Absolutely, most academics who get to the top will have done something disruptive along the way. They won their cases, and most of them made plenty of strategic enemies doing so. They likely also put down other cases they believed in that they saw as politically unwinnable. However, from the perspective of the case itself, perhaps being pursued by some dude at the second rung, absolutely convinced that a dogma is wrong, it doesn't really matter that some other person with a stronger CV, more political nous and a sexier field was successful in their own, different war with the establishment. That doesn't stop his own case being stepped on by a dinosaur, regardless of its actual merit. I understand your point now. You're arguing that disproving bad theories is how you succeed in science. I agree. I'm arguing that despite this, there are situations where the power structures of science and the shittiness of scientific funding can entrench a bad theory well past the point it should have been disproven. That's the system working as intended though. At some point, the approach that disrupts the status quo crops up, disrupts the field and a new status quo is achieved. Sure, there is always pushback, and sometimes it takes too long -- the crisis of reproducibility is a prime example -- but science always gets there in the end. It really does not require everyone to be perfect all the time. None of these posts really make a case for why doing disruptive research is going to get you blackballed or lose you research funding. Even if they were blackballed, science would still get there in the end. Indeed, people will always grudgingly publish their research even when it conflicts with their personal values. Scientists are pretty impressive that way. No, I read a survey somewhere that said that around half of the researchers in the US wouldn’t present results that they thought would make society worse. I’ll try to dig up the reference when I have a computer at hand. If you asked me if I would publish research that I thought would make society worse, I'd say, hell naw. If I spent 3 years busting my balls collecting data and triply veryfing my findings and re-analysing the thing every which way I could think of and still got a result that I believe would hurt society, I think I would just suck it up and publish it. I would probably hate myself, but science is a bitch and it doesn't care about your feelings and it is better to know than not to know.
It’s a conundrum.
I mean let’s say in hypothetical land I went in to show that actually, various human groupings don’t have many real differences in cognitive ability, or whatever.
I discover the opposite is actually true, what do I do with that information?
If I publish it, it’s going to legitimise stereotypes and prejudice against that group.
On the flipside, so much of culture and policy is predicated on that idea that we’re all fundamentally equal, and we’re not, all of that may actually be counter-productive as it’s founded on a faulty assumption.
I must say, I don’t actually know what I’d do in that scenario.
I’m sure it goes without saying but this is purely a hypothetical and not me shadowing in bullshit racial theories under the guise of a hypothetical.
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I'm sorry I misremembered quite badly, but the survey was still rather revealing. Around 400 psychology professors were asked if scentists should prioritize "truth" or "social equity" if the two are in conflict (ie. research results show that men are better than women in math or something):
When asked whether scientists should prioritize truth or social equity goals when the two conflict, among men, the majority (66.4 percent) prioritized truth, 32.4 percent said “it’s complicated,” and 1.3 percent prioritized social equity. Among women, the majority (52.1 percent) said “it’s complicated,” 43.0 percent prioritized truth, and 4.8 percent prioritized social equity.
https://quillette.com/2022/10/08/sex-and-the-academy/
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On November 08 2024 01:08 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2024 00:43 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 08 2024 00:38 Elroi wrote:On November 07 2024 23:17 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 23:12 BlackJack wrote:On November 07 2024 22:50 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 22:27 Belisarius wrote:On November 07 2024 21:54 EnDeR_ wrote:On November 07 2024 21:48 Belisarius wrote:On November 07 2024 21:15 EnDeR_ wrote:
[quote]
If you have done any funding application then you damn well know that disruptive research that challenges the status quo is more like to get funded, not less.
The whole premise of these posts is flawed. I honestly don't think this is true. Yes, when you have already built a strong disruptive case, you are a rockstar. That's obvious. But the battle is long before that. Disruptive research is a path of very high resistance. You find a thread and pick at it, you lose it, you try again, eventually one catches and slowly, piece by piece, you unravel.... the thing that many of your potential sponsors built their career on. That first moment where you have nothing more than a hunch and the tip of the first thread between your fingernails, and you need to convince someone to fund your attempt to pull it.... that moment is extremely vulnerable. Especially when that thread is attached to the trousers of the eminent scientist who will assess your grant. It seems very naïve to assume that they will not try to stop you, whether maliciously or just because they believe in the thing you are unravelling so strongly that they can't even consider that you would be right. If it turns out you have the wrong thread, you have, at best, made yourself look dumb in front of people who will be assessing your work your entire career. At worst, you've made outright enemies of them. I know many people who've put themselves in a career cul de sac by doing this. My old supervisor certainly did. I do believe that in the hard sciences, the truth will eventually out. Eventually there will be some corollary discovery that opens the cracks, or some new microscope that makes it so you can go from the first thread to half a trouser-leg on the leftovers of some other grant, and then they can't stop you anymore. But a powerful dogmatist in a powerful position can slow this process very substantially. Academia is cut-throat at all levels. What you are describing is pretty much the pathway every professor has taken in every university worth doing research in. Nobody gives you anything for free and you don't get to be a professor if you didn't do something hugely innovative that disrupted (influenced) the field in some way. You literally will never progress to professor if this does not happen. And yes, your funding depends on the old dinosaurs on the panel that will keep on pushing their own research above all else. The system is very crooked and is heavily weighted towards people that are already established. You will never hear me defend the academic funding system -- it is so so so very shit. Nevertheless, it remains true that disruptive research that challenges the status quo is more likely to get funded than run of the mill, just doing the same old shit, kind of proposal. I think the difference is coming at it from the angle of a successful career, versus the angle of the successful case. Absolutely, most academics who get to the top will have done something disruptive along the way. They won their cases, and most of them made plenty of strategic enemies doing so. They likely also put down other cases they believed in that they saw as politically unwinnable. However, from the perspective of the case itself, perhaps being pursued by some dude at the second rung, absolutely convinced that a dogma is wrong, it doesn't really matter that some other person with a stronger CV, more political nous and a sexier field was successful in their own, different war with the establishment. That doesn't stop his own case being stepped on by a dinosaur, regardless of its actual merit. I understand your point now. You're arguing that disproving bad theories is how you succeed in science. I agree. I'm arguing that despite this, there are situations where the power structures of science and the shittiness of scientific funding can entrench a bad theory well past the point it should have been disproven. That's the system working as intended though. At some point, the approach that disrupts the status quo crops up, disrupts the field and a new status quo is achieved. Sure, there is always pushback, and sometimes it takes too long -- the crisis of reproducibility is a prime example -- but science always gets there in the end. It really does not require everyone to be perfect all the time. None of these posts really make a case for why doing disruptive research is going to get you blackballed or lose you research funding. Even if they were blackballed, science would still get there in the end. Indeed, people will always grudgingly publish their research even when it conflicts with their personal values. Scientists are pretty impressive that way. No, I read a survey somewhere that said that around half of the researchers in the US wouldn’t present results that they thought would make society worse. I’ll try to dig up the reference when I have a computer at hand. If you asked me if I would publish research that I thought would make society worse, I'd say, hell naw. If I spent 3 years busting my balls collecting data and triply veryfing my findings and re-analysing the thing every which way I could think of and still got a result that I believe would hurt society, I think I would just suck it up and publish it. I would probably hate myself, but science is a bitch and it doesn't care about your feelings and it is better to know than not to know. It’s a conundrum. I mean let’s say in hypothetical land I went in to show that actually, various human groupings don’t have many real differences in cognitive ability, or whatever. I discover the opposite is actually true, what do I do with that information? If I publish it, it’s going to legitimise stereotypes and prejudice against that group. On the flipside, so much of culture and policy is predicated on that idea that we’re all fundamentally equal, and we’re not, all of that may actually be counter-productive as it’s founded on a faulty assumption. I must say, I don’t actually know what I’d do in that scenario. I’m sure it goes without saying but this is purely a hypothetical and not me shadowing in bullshit racial theories under the guise of a hypothetical.
What you'd do in that scenario is have another go at data collection, expand the groups to control for every possible variable you could think of. Go through the methodology a million times and ensure that everything is squeaky clean. Sit on it for a year and do more data collection because obviously you have done something wrong. Sit on it some more. Fudge the data so it shows what you think it should show. Go back and un-fudge it because that's obvious malpractice and you're a scientist god damn it. Sit on it some more while your student is going absolutely insane because without this they can't graduate and they keep re-analysing the data. If after all that, the result is still 'well we were wrong about this', you just publish it and caveat the crap out of it because surely there is something you haven't considered. But you publish it anyway.
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Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On November 08 2024 00:41 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2024 00:28 sevencck wrote:On March 18 2024 23:20 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2024 18:06 BlackJack wrote:On March 18 2024 11:34 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2024 07:52 BlackJack wrote:On March 18 2024 07:39 Sermokala wrote:On March 18 2024 06:57 BlackJack wrote:On March 18 2024 06:05 Gorsameth wrote:
You keep trying to imply Biden can't speak in full sentences.
I thought we dispelled that myth with the State of the Union. There's a difference between giving a once-a-year prepared speech that you have plenty of time to rehearse for than being on the campaign trail, answering questions and speaking off-script. Let's not pretend this is some hot take just because it's coming from me. It's a widely held opinion that Biden lacks the mental sharpness for another term. If you think that's untrue why don't you think his advisers do more to put him front and center to prove otherwise? Why do they decline interviews and press conferences? Why won't they commit to debates? Seems like his advisers agree more with me. Can you commit to us here that you think trump has more mental sharpness than biden? Just want to save it for when the dimentia gets even more out of control. Trump clearly has more mental sharpness right now than Biden. Not sure what you hope to accomplish by getting this on the record. You know that you can't rate the truthfulness of past statements based on some changes that may or may not happen in the future, right? On October 27 2023 00:58 KwarK wrote:This is a few days old now but I just saw Trump’s nuanced and reasonable speech in response to the Gaza attacks. + Show Spoiler + People who sympathize with this are sick, they're sick and they're evil and they're not going to be fixed. You're not going to make them into wonderful people one day. I didn't know you had flies in Iowa. I HATE FLIES! Now I'll get in trouble for saying that, cruelty to animals, no, it's true. You know I said the other day, wee I was at a place, it was a beautiful place, but they had like flies and I said "GET FLY PAPER" they said "they're not allowed to sell it anymore because of cruelty to animals" they actually said that but I don't know can you get fly paper it used to be great right but "you can't do that anymore sir it's cruelty". What the hell is going on with this country? https://youtube.com/shorts/yWD9T5J0vaQ?si=xPccA0ZcIk4EY2ntFound the snippet you’re quoting. A fly buzzes around him on stage so he does some half-serious ad libbing about flies while pandering to his base by implying that the red meat republicans can’t harm flies because of pussy liberal animal rights activists. Ok… that’s pretty on brand from Trump. Hardly incoherent. Once again this just reinforces my point. Trump gets up and talks off the cuff for hours on end and tweets every thought that comes through his mind. If Biden goes off script for 2 minutes it’s a disaster. It’s not incoherent, it’s deranged. You lost the presidency, the senate, the house, and the supreme court. You're losing the culture war and don't really even appear to understand why. Instead of listening, as you so evidently should, you continue to lecture. Who's deranged? Just because a lot of people agree with you doesn't mean that you are right. And just because another side is losing doesn't mean you win. Currently, everybody loses. If that is good enough for you...
‘Hey US Pol is an echo chamber but I only pop in to gloat and then fuck off’ post #15
Makes me rather thankful for our conservative regulars I gotta say. Appreciate you fellows
The further right have already lost the culture war. The anger surrounding it will give them political wins, we’ve obviously seen that already. But they’ve had no real success in changing the underlying cultural shifts.
Like video #27583 complaining about Star Wars being ‘too woke’ might get some traction, it’s not changing the output.
Or in a more serious issue, you can block abortion rights but they haven’t changed minds that the majority of people are pro choice
To win a culture war, well the culture itself is the battleground. You can gain political wins to suppress the other side actualising, but if it’s from a minority position on x issue you’ve lost on the actual cultural questions
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On November 08 2024 01:14 Elroi wrote:I'm sorry I misremembered quite badly, but the survey was still rather revealing. Around 400 psychology professors were asked if scentists should prioritize "truth" or "social equity" if the two are in conflict (ie. research results show that men are better than women in math or something): Show nested quote +When asked whether scientists should prioritize truth or social equity goals when the two conflict, among men, the majority (66.4 percent) prioritized truth, 32.4 percent said “it’s complicated,” and 1.3 percent prioritized social equity. Among women, the majority (52.1 percent) said “it’s complicated,” 43.0 percent prioritized truth, and 4.8 percent prioritized social equity.
https://quillette.com/2022/10/08/sex-and-the-academy/
That's uncanny, 3% is the same number of scientists that commit fraud in that metastudy linked a couple pages back. It just goes to show; you really should trust 97% of scientists 
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On November 08 2024 01:14 Elroi wrote:I'm sorry I misremembered quite badly, but the survey was still rather revealing. Around 400 psychology professors were asked if scentists should prioritize "truth" or "social equity" if the two are in conflict (ie. research results show that men are better than women in math or something): Show nested quote +When asked whether scientists should prioritize truth or social equity goals when the two conflict, among men, the majority (66.4 percent) prioritized truth, 32.4 percent said “it’s complicated,” and 1.3 percent prioritized social equity. Among women, the majority (52.1 percent) said “it’s complicated,” 43.0 percent prioritized truth, and 4.8 percent prioritized social equity.
https://quillette.com/2022/10/08/sex-and-the-academy/
Thank you for the link. If we take this survey at face value, the conclusion would be that most scientists either prefer the truth or they require more context to make a decision. Seems reasonable to me.
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United States43450 Posts
On November 08 2024 00:28 sevencck wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2024 23:20 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2024 18:06 BlackJack wrote:On March 18 2024 11:34 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2024 07:52 BlackJack wrote:On March 18 2024 07:39 Sermokala wrote:On March 18 2024 06:57 BlackJack wrote:On March 18 2024 06:05 Gorsameth wrote:
You keep trying to imply Biden can't speak in full sentences.
I thought we dispelled that myth with the State of the Union. There's a difference between giving a once-a-year prepared speech that you have plenty of time to rehearse for than being on the campaign trail, answering questions and speaking off-script. Let's not pretend this is some hot take just because it's coming from me. It's a widely held opinion that Biden lacks the mental sharpness for another term. If you think that's untrue why don't you think his advisers do more to put him front and center to prove otherwise? Why do they decline interviews and press conferences? Why won't they commit to debates? Seems like his advisers agree more with me. Can you commit to us here that you think trump has more mental sharpness than biden? Just want to save it for when the dimentia gets even more out of control. Trump clearly has more mental sharpness right now than Biden. Not sure what you hope to accomplish by getting this on the record. You know that you can't rate the truthfulness of past statements based on some changes that may or may not happen in the future, right? On October 27 2023 00:58 KwarK wrote:This is a few days old now but I just saw Trump’s nuanced and reasonable speech in response to the Gaza attacks. + Show Spoiler + People who sympathize with this are sick, they're sick and they're evil and they're not going to be fixed. You're not going to make them into wonderful people one day. I didn't know you had flies in Iowa. I HATE FLIES! Now I'll get in trouble for saying that, cruelty to animals, no, it's true. You know I said the other day, wee I was at a place, it was a beautiful place, but they had like flies and I said "GET FLY PAPER" they said "they're not allowed to sell it anymore because of cruelty to animals" they actually said that but I don't know can you get fly paper it used to be great right but "you can't do that anymore sir it's cruelty". What the hell is going on with this country? https://youtube.com/shorts/yWD9T5J0vaQ?si=xPccA0ZcIk4EY2ntFound the snippet you’re quoting. A fly buzzes around him on stage so he does some half-serious ad libbing about flies while pandering to his base by implying that the red meat republicans can’t harm flies because of pussy liberal animal rights activists. Ok… that’s pretty on brand from Trump. Hardly incoherent. Once again this just reinforces my point. Trump gets up and talks off the cuff for hours on end and tweets every thought that comes through his mind. If Biden goes off script for 2 minutes it’s a disaster. It’s not incoherent, it’s deranged. You lost the presidency, the senate, the house, and the supreme court. You're losing the culture war and don't really even appear to understand why. Instead of listening, as you so evidently should, you continue to lecture. Who's deranged?
The old man yelling about how he hates flies is the deranged one.
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On November 08 2024 01:30 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2024 00:28 sevencck wrote:On March 18 2024 23:20 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2024 18:06 BlackJack wrote:On March 18 2024 11:34 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2024 07:52 BlackJack wrote:On March 18 2024 07:39 Sermokala wrote:On March 18 2024 06:57 BlackJack wrote:On March 18 2024 06:05 Gorsameth wrote:
You keep trying to imply Biden can't speak in full sentences.
I thought we dispelled that myth with the State of the Union. There's a difference between giving a once-a-year prepared speech that you have plenty of time to rehearse for than being on the campaign trail, answering questions and speaking off-script. Let's not pretend this is some hot take just because it's coming from me. It's a widely held opinion that Biden lacks the mental sharpness for another term. If you think that's untrue why don't you think his advisers do more to put him front and center to prove otherwise? Why do they decline interviews and press conferences? Why won't they commit to debates? Seems like his advisers agree more with me. Can you commit to us here that you think trump has more mental sharpness than biden? Just want to save it for when the dimentia gets even more out of control. Trump clearly has more mental sharpness right now than Biden. Not sure what you hope to accomplish by getting this on the record. You know that you can't rate the truthfulness of past statements based on some changes that may or may not happen in the future, right? On October 27 2023 00:58 KwarK wrote:This is a few days old now but I just saw Trump’s nuanced and reasonable speech in response to the Gaza attacks. + Show Spoiler + People who sympathize with this are sick, they're sick and they're evil and they're not going to be fixed. You're not going to make them into wonderful people one day. I didn't know you had flies in Iowa. I HATE FLIES! Now I'll get in trouble for saying that, cruelty to animals, no, it's true. You know I said the other day, wee I was at a place, it was a beautiful place, but they had like flies and I said "GET FLY PAPER" they said "they're not allowed to sell it anymore because of cruelty to animals" they actually said that but I don't know can you get fly paper it used to be great right but "you can't do that anymore sir it's cruelty". What the hell is going on with this country? https://youtube.com/shorts/yWD9T5J0vaQ?si=xPccA0ZcIk4EY2ntFound the snippet you’re quoting. A fly buzzes around him on stage so he does some half-serious ad libbing about flies while pandering to his base by implying that the red meat republicans can’t harm flies because of pussy liberal animal rights activists. Ok… that’s pretty on brand from Trump. Hardly incoherent. Once again this just reinforces my point. Trump gets up and talks off the cuff for hours on end and tweets every thought that comes through his mind. If Biden goes off script for 2 minutes it’s a disaster. It’s not incoherent, it’s deranged. You lost the presidency, the senate, the house, and the supreme court. You're losing the culture war and don't really even appear to understand why. Instead of listening, as you so evidently should, you continue to lecture. Who's deranged? The old man yelling about how he hates flies is the deranged one.
"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us." -Hermann Hesse
The derangement around Trump is like 90% shadow projection. You're all just shadow boxing with your own inner tyrant imo.
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I actually have more empathy for a fellow human than a fly, maybe I'm the outlier.
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United States43450 Posts
On November 08 2024 01:39 oBlade wrote:
I actually have more empathy for a fellow human than a fly, maybe I'm the outlier.
There were no pro fly people there. Trump took issue with the fact that he can’t buy flypaper in Biden’s America but the sale of flypaper is not restricted. Any issues Trump is having buying flypaper are user error, nobody was trying to protect the flies.
This was part of his speech in response to the October 7 terror attacks.
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Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On November 08 2024 01:38 sevencck wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2024 01:30 KwarK wrote:On November 08 2024 00:28 sevencck wrote:On March 18 2024 23:20 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2024 18:06 BlackJack wrote:On March 18 2024 11:34 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2024 07:52 BlackJack wrote:On March 18 2024 07:39 Sermokala wrote:On March 18 2024 06:57 BlackJack wrote:On March 18 2024 06:05 Gorsameth wrote:
You keep trying to imply Biden can't speak in full sentences.
I thought we dispelled that myth with the State of the Union. There's a difference between giving a once-a-year prepared speech that you have plenty of time to rehearse for than being on the campaign trail, answering questions and speaking off-script. Let's not pretend this is some hot take just because it's coming from me. It's a widely held opinion that Biden lacks the mental sharpness for another term. If you think that's untrue why don't you think his advisers do more to put him front and center to prove otherwise? Why do they decline interviews and press conferences? Why won't they commit to debates? Seems like his advisers agree more with me. Can you commit to us here that you think trump has more mental sharpness than biden? Just want to save it for when the dimentia gets even more out of control. Trump clearly has more mental sharpness right now than Biden. Not sure what you hope to accomplish by getting this on the record. You know that you can't rate the truthfulness of past statements based on some changes that may or may not happen in the future, right? On October 27 2023 00:58 KwarK wrote:This is a few days old now but I just saw Trump’s nuanced and reasonable speech in response to the Gaza attacks. + Show Spoiler + People who sympathize with this are sick, they're sick and they're evil and they're not going to be fixed. You're not going to make them into wonderful people one day. I didn't know you had flies in Iowa. I HATE FLIES! Now I'll get in trouble for saying that, cruelty to animals, no, it's true. You know I said the other day, wee I was at a place, it was a beautiful place, but they had like flies and I said "GET FLY PAPER" they said "they're not allowed to sell it anymore because of cruelty to animals" they actually said that but I don't know can you get fly paper it used to be great right but "you can't do that anymore sir it's cruelty". What the hell is going on with this country? https://youtube.com/shorts/yWD9T5J0vaQ?si=xPccA0ZcIk4EY2ntFound the snippet you’re quoting. A fly buzzes around him on stage so he does some half-serious ad libbing about flies while pandering to his base by implying that the red meat republicans can’t harm flies because of pussy liberal animal rights activists. Ok… that’s pretty on brand from Trump. Hardly incoherent. Once again this just reinforces my point. Trump gets up and talks off the cuff for hours on end and tweets every thought that comes through his mind. If Biden goes off script for 2 minutes it’s a disaster. It’s not incoherent, it’s deranged. You lost the presidency, the senate, the house, and the supreme court. You're losing the culture war and don't really even appear to understand why. Instead of listening, as you so evidently should, you continue to lecture. Who's deranged? The old man yelling about how he hates flies is the deranged one. "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us." -Hermann Hesse The derangement around Trump is like 90% shadow projection. You're all just shadow boxing with your own inner tyrant imo.
Trump is basically the diametric opposite to my values, or indeed day-to-day personality. Perhaps the sole area of commonality is I’m also quite combative and acerbic. I’m not sure what the fuck Hermann Hesse is talking about
The whole Trump epoch is basically defined by the most obviously deficient asshole at the high end of political and cultural life that I’ve yet encountered having people deny all the irrefutable evidence that points to that conclusion and saying the people with a functioning asshole detector being deranged.
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Not a single pro fly person, really? That can't be a coincidence. What an absolute political genius, coopting an issue that his audience feels unanimously about. Must be rhetorical genius like this that has made him so amiable to so many.
Thanks for keeping the count safe by the way.
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On November 08 2024 01:54 oBlade wrote:
Not a single pro fly person, really? That can't be a coincidence. What an absolute political genius, coopting an issue that his audience feels unanimously about. Must be rhetorical genius like this that has made him so amiable to so many.
Thanks for keeping the count safe by the way.
Are you on drugs?
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Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On November 08 2024 01:56 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2024 01:54 oBlade wrote:
Not a single pro fly person, really? That can't be a coincidence. What an absolute political genius, coopting an issue that his audience feels unanimously about. Must be rhetorical genius like this that has made him so amiable to so many.
Thanks for keeping the count safe by the way. Are you on drugs?
If so, which ones? It seems like they’re having a great time so I might have to give it a shot
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EPT
