Is taxpayer-funded academia worth it?

[Toni]

Failure to understand the significance of research in humanities or social science does not necessarily indicate that the research is faulty or wasteful - it simply may indicate ignorance or bias.

Let's take the very first paper from the OP. What does some poet misunderstanding the concept of a limit in math have to do with anything remotely significant or worthy of funding? It has to do with affirmative action admissions becoming affirmative action hires at affirmative action "racial grievance" departments.

What makes you qualified to make that judgment? Seriously. I want to know your qualifications.


It seems to me that in recent years, the perceived value of education has fallen greatly and is being replaced with an emphasis on what is really job training. My personal opinion is that we already have enough trained monkeys and trained robots. McDonalds can do its own damn training. Society is better served by those who know how to think. Without being told what to think.

Aside from that, there are also very serious issues raised in society when scientific advances are made without any real concept of what the moral, ethical, legal, logistical, and societal implications of such advance might be and how society will incorporate--or not--any of these advances.

Arts and humanities help us to understand ourselves and the world-and people-around us. That's something we could really use a lot more of, frankly.

 

[untermensche]

This is a problem with the educational institutions and the insanity of publish or perish.

It has nothing to do with how these institutions are funded.

It has to do with lack of any sort of sanity in social science and humanities departments where they are overrun by identity politics and postmodernism. There is a lot of stuff that deserves to be funded, but stuff in the OP should not be funded by anybody. Of course, it is the result of misguided racial/gender politics of the last 40 years that you can't defund this stuff, no matter how insane, lest you be labeled "racist" or "misogynist" or "homophobe" (as they gratuitously toss in LGBTQABCDEFG...)

Departments don't get "overrun". Certain ideas dominate for a time being.

But this whole argument really is a fallacy.

You can't use the rare example to prove a general rule.

There is so much research being done it can look like a lot of it is a waste of time if you only look at a tiny bit of the total research being done.

 

[laughing dog]

It has to do with lack of any sort of sanity in social science and humanities departments where they are overrun by identity politics and postmodernism. There is a lot of stuff that deserves to be funded, but stuff in the OP should not be funded by anybody. Of course, it is the result of misguided racial/gender politics of the last 40 years that you can't defund this stuff, no matter how insane, lest you be labeled "racist" or "misogynist" or "homophobe" (as they gratuitously toss in LGBTQABCDEFG...)

Departments don't get "overrun". Certain ideas dominate for a time being.

But this whole argument really is a fallacy.

You can't use the rare example to prove a general rule.

There is so much research being done it can look like a lot of it is a waste of time if you only look at a tiny bit of the total research being done.

More importantly, if someone does not value the discipline, he or she will automatically discount any research coming from that area.

 

[Derec]

You assume facts not in evidence. There is no evidence she did not understand the concept of a mathematical limit. It is entirely probable she is using that concept as a metaphor.

She opens with a statement that makes it highly unlikely she could solve a quadratic equation without googling it, much less anything else.

Nor is there any evidence that research was directly funded.

Well somebody has to be funding her. Also, "research" is a bit grandiose a term for such a trite and meaningless text.

The abstract to that paper was more logical than your introduction of one of your hobby horses.

Nonsense. Nothing in that abstract has any logic to in. On the other hand, if you admit students based on race/gender, when you hire professors based on race/gender and finally when you open whole departments based on nothing but race/gender this is what you get.

Is it possible for you to stay on track instead of using every instance to babble about one of your many boring hobby horses?

Those are actual statements made by actual academics who make just as little sense as those in the OP.

 

[untermensche]

Departments don't get "overrun". Certain ideas dominate for a time being.

But this whole argument really is a fallacy.

You can't use the rare example to prove a general rule.

There is so much research being done it can look like a lot of it is a waste of time if you only look at a tiny bit of the total research being done.

More importantly, if someone does not value the discipline, he or she will automatically discount any research coming from that area.

I'm a pharmacist and really only know pharmacy primary research, a small fraction of it. A lot of it is seriously flawed due to the profit motive.

 

[laughing dog]

She opens with a statement that makes it highly unlikely she could solve a quadratic equation without googling it, much less anything else.

One does not need to use limits to solve quadratic equations, so your conflation of your bias with reality is truly irrelevant.

Well somebody has to be funding her.

Perhaps she is doing this on the side or in addition to her normal duties. Using your reasoning, should we question who is funding your ability to post such tripe and silliness?

Nonsense. Nothing in that abstract has any logic to in.

You are babbling again.

On the other hand, if you admit students based on race/gender, when you hire professors based on race/gender and finally when you open whole departments based on nothing but race/gender this is what you get.

More irrelevant babbling.

Those are actual statements made by actual academics who make just as little sense as those in the OP.

More babble masquerading as relevant content.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

This feels a lot like the anti-public school teacher argument. The Unions are "protecting" the bad teachers. Someone was fishing in the shallows, picked up a tiny number of abstracts and is now extrapolating it to the entire system.

 

[Derec]

This feels a lot like the anti-public school teacher argument. The Unions are "protecting" the bad teachers. Someone was fishing in the shallows, picked up a tiny number of abstracts and is now extrapolating it to the entire system.

The unions are protecting bad teachers, but I think this problem has more to do with ideological leftists taking over certain departments since the 70s and not having anything meaningful to research they are spewing nonsense. if your main qualification is your race, gender and your left wing politics, that's what you get.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

This feels a lot like the anti-public school teacher argument. The Unions are "protecting" the bad teachers. Someone was fishing in the shallows, picked up a tiny number of abstracts and is now extrapolating it to the entire system.

The unions are protecting bad teachers, but I think this problem has more to do with ideological leftists taking over certain departments since the 70s and not having anything meaningful to research they are spewing nonsense. if your main qualification is your race, gender and your left wing politics, that's what you get.

Based on what? A tiny handful of abstracts (not even the papers themselves).

 

[Derec]

One does not need to use limits to solve quadratic equations

You don't say! Of course not. My point was that she'd have trouble with simple algebra, and forget about calculus.
You can see it from her usage of the word "limit" in her abstract. It's the everyday usage of the word, and has nothing with limits as used in math.

Perhaps she is doing this on the side or in addition to her normal duties.

That is pure speculation.

 

[Derec]

Based on what? A tiny handful of abstracts (not even the papers themselves).

Based on much more than that actually, and we have discussed aspects of it before on here.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Based on what? A tiny handful of abstracts (not even the papers themselves).

Based on much more than that actually, and we have discussed aspects of it before on here.

Are these graduate students or professors publishing these papers?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Based on what? A tiny handful of abstracts (not even the papers themselves).

Based on much more than that actually, and we have discussed aspects of it before on here.

I'm sure you think that such a thing was done. Incredible how so many people who graduated from college become conservatives.

 

[thebeave]

Failure to understand the significance of research in humanities or social science does not necessarily indicate that the research is faulty or wasteful - it simply may indicate ignorance or bias.

Let's take the very first paper from the OP. What does some poet misunderstanding the concept of a limit or a polynomial in math have to do with anything remotely significant or worthy of funding? It has to do with affirmative action admissions becoming affirmative action hires at affirmative action "racial/gender grievance" departments.

This kind of nonsense is not new. Feminist calculus is not that different than the infamous "Newton's Principia as a rape manual" nonsense by Sandra Harding or "E=mc² is a sexed equation because it privileges the speed of light" by Luce Irigaray. And the paper on "Snooki-as-text" reads like Sokal's hoax paper.

Can't believe you forgot about the paper on feminist glaciology. That's a classic! But then again, maybe us ordinary folks with our basic science backgrounds aren't really edumacated enough to comprehend it:

http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/12/feminist-glacier-guy-youre-not-educated-enough-to-get-my-research/

The University of Oregon historian who wrote a study claiming glaciers are sexist said in an interview Friday that the general public isn’t educated enough about feminism to understand his research.

In the interview, Dr. Mark Carey claims that when his studies are “described to nonspecialists, the research can be misunderstood and potentially misrepresented.”

The study was poorly received by the general public and many real scientists, several of whom even initially believed the study was a work of satire. Cornell University chemist Dr. Phil Mason wrote on Twitter the study left him”dumbfounded.”

The research was financially supported by taxpayer dollars. The National Science Foundation (NSF) gave Carey a five-year grant to write his “feminist glaciology” paper. He has received a total of $709,125 in grants from the NSF, according to his curriculum vitae. Carey did not address the huge sum of money he received in the interview.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Based on much more than that actually, and we have discussed aspects of it before on here.

I'm sure you think that such a thing was done. Incredible how so many people who graduated from college become conservatives.

That and which journals are picking them up? There are a whole bunch of pseudo-journals out there.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

He has received a total of $709,125 in grants from the NSF,

This is for his entire career, and it doesn't appear he received any money directly from the NSF for this.

I don't see the big deal in the paper itself. It is just a critique of the way we look at and study glaciers.

 

[Derec]

I don't see the big deal in the paper itself. It is just a critique of the way we look at and study glaciers.

They are slowly moving rivers of ice. They do not have gender. Feminist glaciology is nonsensical, as would be mascunilist version.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I don't see the big deal in the paper itself. It is just a critique of the way we look at and study glaciers.

They are slowly moving rivers of ice. They do not have gender. Feminist glaciology is nonsensical, as would be mascunilist version.

So you read the paper like I did? Having read the paper, I might not agree with it (because I know women who have crossed Antarctica on dogsled and see an empowering feminist element to our conceptions of glaciers - this is a human geography paper), but the truth lies in the presentation of ideas and critique or discussion of them. That is how knowledge advances.

 

[Jarhyn]

ITT: Sample Bias.

Because the united states has many people, and because many of those people seek higher education, you are likely to discover some number of cranks who slip through the cracks. It is inevitable due to the rule of large numbers.

So yes. You'll have people researching nonsense from time to time in order to avoid having to get a McJob that someone of such underwhelming aspirations would qualify for.

It doesn't change the fact that we are spending hundreds of times as much money building planes and tanks and aircraft carriers that are nonsensically expensive and which nobody wants. We are talking a difference of many orders of magnitude.

It is pointless and irresponsibly wasteful of OUR TIME DISCUSSING this to harp about the few millions of dollars spent on dumb research in academia when we are literally flushing billions of dollars on a plane that everyone but the defense industry thinks is a pointless waste of money.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I don't see the big deal in the paper itself. It is just a critique of the way we look at and study glaciers.

They are slowly moving rivers of ice. They do not have gender. Feminist glaciology is nonsensical, as would be mascunilist version.

You aren't actually critiquing the paper, just what you think it says.