How Democracy Dies

[Oexmelin]

Okay since universities can't do their job they should close down.

Cool.

[chipwich]

Okay since universities can't do their job they should close down.

Cool.

Have you quit your job then or are you going to continue being a thief?

[The Brain]

My impression is that many lay people think that if something is published in a peer-reviewed form it can be considered scientific fact. This is obviously not the case, but it may not be so obvious to lay folks. Part of the problem may be that peer review simply doesn't do, and isn't designed to do, all that lay society expects of it.

[chipwich]

Society should retaliate by cutting off funding for universities until they get their shit together.

[The Minsky Moment]

We should do the same for every institution in society that fails to meet its aspirational standards.  The military, all federal and state governments, the courts, all corporations, all Churches and other religious establishments. For starters.

[Oexmelin]

The difference though between the humanities and (say) hard sciences, is that while fraud or sloppy thinking may slip through peer review in both cases, eventually the hard science does have to "work". Cold Fusion famous example of junk science in physics - but there is a natural limit to how far they can go with that. At some point, it has to be shown to be true to reality, or it will be (and was) discarded.

You seem to be applying the same metric very differently. A ton of published studies in science will not be replicated, nor will they ever be used to further a research program. They are, in effect, "junk science" that will just sit there, awaiting to be shown to be junk - which may never happen. And rarely, they foster a full research program dedicated to showing they are right/wrong. Likewise, a ton of humanities article will be published - and be forgotten. And others, which are either controversial, or bring about some remarkable understanding of the human condition, will foster dynamic exchanges - usually on the basis of people arguing whether they are right, or wrong!

So yeah, Sokal published a mock article, thirty years ago. Would that article have garnered attention? Would it have fostered the field? Would it have made it on a course syllabus? That's the essence of "work", in the humanities - and it takes more time to reach an audience, especially now, than the few months it took for him to gloat about it. It certainly did achieve *one* purpose, which is that it got people talking about peer-review process. It did another, which is it gave fodder for years to anti-humanities rhetoric, as if, somehow, this was inherent to the humanities, while all the science scandals in the peer-review world (see: vaccination and autism, the Lancet) are always seen as dysfunctions.

I can certainly agree that there is a lot of time, and energy wasted in publishing crap articles in mediocre journals. But that's a structural problem of universities, and it concerns all disciplines. 

[The Brain]

Many universities certainly engage in plain pseudoscience. A few years back Gothenburg university complained in one of the major Swedish newspapers about the "excessive faith in evidence-based methods" (övertro på evidensbasering) displayed by people who questioned the retarded pseudoscience BS they produced. Which is hilarious and sad.

[Malthus]

Society should retaliate by cutting off funding for universities until they get their shit together.

This makes no sense, in a 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater' sort of way. 

[chipwich]

We should do the same for every institution in society that fails to meet its aspirational standards.  The military, all federal and state governments, the courts, all corporations, all Churches and other religious establishments. For starters.

Universities have nothing except aspirational standards.

[frunk]

Society should retaliate by cutting off funding for universities until they get their shit together.

I retaliated against everything that isn't perfect by cutting off contact with everybody and collapsing into a ball and covering myself with a blanket.  Then I got out of bed.

[Oexmelin]

Have you quit your job then or are you going to continue being a thief?

Of course not. With my considerable ill-gotten gains, I run a weekly course on how to undermine all of the United States institutions through the use of gender-inclusive vocabulary. Next week, we begin with throwing Discipline and Punish at the Constitution.

[chipwich]

Society should retaliate by cutting off funding for universities until they get their shit together.

This makes no sense, in a 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater' sort of way.

Every university professor has the responsibility to enforce the ethical standards of his peers. If Albert Einstein allows one of his colleagues to teach Flat Earthism as fact then Albert Einstein does not deserve his position.

[chipwich]

Society should retaliate by cutting off funding for universities until they get their shit together.

I retaliated against everything that isn't perfect by cutting off contact with everybody and collapsing into a ball and covering myself with a blanket.  Then I got out of bed.

There is a difference between imperfection and lying.

[Malthus]

The difference though between the humanities and (say) hard sciences, is that while fraud or sloppy thinking may slip through peer review in both cases, eventually the hard science does have to "work". Cold Fusion famous example of junk science in physics - but there is a natural limit to how far they can go with that. At some point, it has to be shown to be true to reality, or it will be (and was) discarded.

You seem to be applying the same metric very differently. A ton of published studies in science will not be replicated, nor will they ever be used to further a research program. They are, in effect, "junk science" that will just sit there, awaiting to be shown to be junk - which may never happen. And rarely, they foster a full research program dedicated to showing they are right/wrong. Likewise, a ton of humanities article will be published - and be forgotten. And others, which are either controversial, or bring about some remarkable understanding of the human condition, will foster dynamic exchanges - usually on the basis of people arguing whether they are right, or wrong!

So yeah, Sokal published a mock article, thirty years ago. Would that article have garnered attention? Would it have fostered the field? Would it have made it on a course syllabus? That's the essence of "work", in the humanities - and it takes more time to reach an audience, especially now, than the few months it took for him to gloat about it. It certainly did achieve *one* purpose, which is that it got people talking about peer-review process. It did another, which is it gave fodder for years to anti-humanities rhetoric, as if, somehow, this was inherent to the humanities, while all the science scandals in the peer-review world (see: vaccination and autism, the Lancet) are always seen as dysfunctions.

I can certainly agree that there is a lot of time, and energy wasted in publishing crap articles in mediocre journals. But that's a structural problem of universities, and it concerns all disciplines.

You aren't really addressing the distinction I made.

I agree there is lots of junk science out there. I also agree much of it will go nowhere, a pure product of the 'publish or perish' incentive system.

I also agree that the same systemic and institutional problems affect sciences and humanities. Further, I will also agree that Sokal and Sokal Squared gave fodder for right wing hits on the 'ivory tower'.

However - in the end, sloppy science will run up against reality, however painful the damage it may do along the way (see your vaccines cause autism article: no they don't, and those who believe that they do, and avoid vaccinating children, will cause us lots of damage until this nonsense is squashed).

Sloppy humanities won't suffer the same obvious punishment from reality.

If 'I' disbelieve in vaccines, and refuse to get my kids vaccinated - eventually, if there are enough of people like 'me', we will see infant mortality rates spike up. Because diseases will propagate without vaccines whether 'I' believe in their relative value or not.

Sloppy humanities thinking won't cause such obvious observable damage. Bad social theories, even if widely believed in the academic world, won't cause kids to visibly die of diseases.

My point is that it does cause damage to society, but that the damage is long-term; it erodes our ability, as a society, to fight sloppy thinking in general. It isn't causative of our current ills (that has many parents), but it isn't helping.

[The Brain]

The difference though between the humanities and (say) hard sciences, is that while fraud or sloppy thinking may slip through peer review in both cases, eventually the hard science does have to "work". Cold Fusion famous example of junk science in physics - but there is a natural limit to how far they can go with that. At some point, it has to be shown to be true to reality, or it will be (and was) discarded.

You seem to be applying the same metric very differently. A ton of published studies in science will not be replicated, nor will they ever be used to further a research program. They are, in effect, "junk science" that will just sit there, awaiting to be shown to be junk - which may never happen. And rarely, they foster a full research program dedicated to showing they are right/wrong. Likewise, a ton of humanities article will be published - and be forgotten. And others, which are either controversial, or bring about some remarkable understanding of the human condition, will foster dynamic exchanges - usually on the basis of people arguing whether they are right, or wrong!

So yeah, Sokal published a mock article, thirty years ago. Would that article have garnered attention? Would it have fostered the field? Would it have made it on a course syllabus? That's the essence of "work", in the humanities - and it takes more time to reach an audience, especially now, than the few months it took for him to gloat about it. It certainly did achieve *one* purpose, which is that it got people talking about peer-review process. It did another, which is it gave fodder for years to anti-humanities rhetoric, as if, somehow, this was inherent to the humanities, while all the science scandals in the peer-review world (see: vaccination and autism, the Lancet) are always seen as dysfunctions.

I can certainly agree that there is a lot of time, and energy wasted in publishing crap articles in mediocre journals. But that's a structural problem of universities, and it concerns all disciplines.

You aren't really addressing the distinction I made.

I agree there is lots of junk science out there. I also agree much of it will go nowhere, a pure product of the 'publish or perish' incentive system.

I also agree that the same systemic and institutional problems affect sciences and humanities. Further, I will also agree that Sokal and Sokal Squared gave fodder for right wing hits on the 'ivory tower'.

However - in the end, sloppy science will run up against reality, however painful the damage it may do along the way (see your vaccines cause autism article: no they don't, and those who believe that they do, and avoid vaccinating children, will cause us lots of damage until this nonsense is squashed).

Sloppy humanities won't suffer the same obvious punishment from reality.

If 'I' disbelieve in vaccines, and refuse to get my kids vaccinated - eventually, if there are enough of people like 'me', we will see infant mortality rates spike up. Because diseases will propagate without vaccines whether 'I' believe in their relative value or not.

Sloppy humanities thinking won't cause such obvious observable damage. Bad social theories, even if widely believed in the academic world, won't cause kids to visibly die of diseases.

My point is that it does cause damage to society, but that the damage is long-term; it erodes our ability, as a society, to fight sloppy thinking in general. It isn't causative of our current ills (that has many parents), but it isn't helping.

I agree.