21 April 2024

Knowledge Discovery versus Money Making

Academia is no longer about discovering how the universe works. It is about writing grant proposals and obtaining funding.

Sabine Hossenfelder has a Ph.D. in physics. She worked in academia for a long time, but she had to give it up because she came to realize that there is something really wrong with the modern research industry.

The moment you put people into big institutions the goal shifts from knowledge discovery to money making.

She calls this a paper production machine. Research papers. Grant proposals. Round and round.

This shows up in a couple of ways. Studies and research papers that cannot be reproduced. An entire area (high energy physics) that is just plain stuck, and hasn't made progress in decades.

... Normal academic procedure, but I knew it was bullshit. Just as most of the work in that area is currently bullshit, and just as most of academic research that your taxes pay for is almost certainly bullshit.

This is the video My dream died, and now I'm here: Why academia sucks from Sabine Hossenfelder. While she has a Ph.D. in physics, this video - at 13 minutes - is very accessible.

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