Well said. The academic community is not immune from the careerism and self-promotion that is part of the pressure to publish and to publish quickly. Too many in the academy regard tenure as a kind of job security rather than as a means for insuring academic freedom. What is striking about tenure is how little those who have it ever say, think, or write something requiring the very protections that tenure affords. The public finds it astounding that Marc Tessier-Levigne and Doris Kearns Goodwin still have their tenured positions after admitting manipulation of data and plagiarism respectively. This is of course nothing new. Newton "edited" and back-dated his notebooks in an attempt to show that he really had invented the Calculus before Leibnitz. Holden Thorp is right to say out loud that the scientific community needs to be less defensive and more accountable.
Many thanks to him for having the courage to say so.
“Sleuths and journalists who point out problems with research should be acknowledged as making science better, especially when the problems they point out are correct.”
Exactly right. But too often the response is defensive stonewalling rather than acknowledging the very strong and sincere efforts to make science better.
I think we can likely agree there is nothing wrong with trying to make science better. It gave an opening to criticize, but were it not for this approach it would be some other.
The objection of many is that there is no real plan to improve science. The EO criticisms are not made in good faith, and there is no attempt to find specific programs to improve science. The criticisms are made to score political points and replace government funding with private investors.
The Kratsios/McNutt discussion at the NASEM, and other sources, made this clear. When asked how massive budget cuts would improve science, Kratsios said that the cuts would be made up by private enterprise playing an increasing role.
Well said. The academic community is not immune from the careerism and self-promotion that is part of the pressure to publish and to publish quickly. Too many in the academy regard tenure as a kind of job security rather than as a means for insuring academic freedom. What is striking about tenure is how little those who have it ever say, think, or write something requiring the very protections that tenure affords. The public finds it astounding that Marc Tessier-Levigne and Doris Kearns Goodwin still have their tenured positions after admitting manipulation of data and plagiarism respectively. This is of course nothing new. Newton "edited" and back-dated his notebooks in an attempt to show that he really had invented the Calculus before Leibnitz. Holden Thorp is right to say out loud that the scientific community needs to be less defensive and more accountable.
Many thanks to him for having the courage to say so.
“Sleuths and journalists who point out problems with research should be acknowledged as making science better, especially when the problems they point out are correct.”
Exactly right. But too often the response is defensive stonewalling rather than acknowledging the very strong and sincere efforts to make science better.
We can and must improve.
I think we can likely agree there is nothing wrong with trying to make science better. It gave an opening to criticize, but were it not for this approach it would be some other.
The objection of many is that there is no real plan to improve science. The EO criticisms are not made in good faith, and there is no attempt to find specific programs to improve science. The criticisms are made to score political points and replace government funding with private investors.
The Kratsios/McNutt discussion at the NASEM, and other sources, made this clear. When asked how massive budget cuts would improve science, Kratsios said that the cuts would be made up by private enterprise playing an increasing role.
Nicely summarized by Josh Weitz.
https://joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/the-state-of-science-moving-beyond
Thank you!