Academia: Is it good or cancer?

I've made this thread to contain the off-topic discussion occurring in >>>/λ/3243, but it's an important topic on its own. Discuss the state of academia. Do you think it's successfully performing its intended function of producing helpful scientific research? Do you think it's politically biased? If it's gone off-track, what can be done to correct the problem? Tell us about it.

>>5421 If you are in STEM at a good university, it's in a reasonably good place. The main issue would be exploitation of grad students which is fairly common, especially in the US. You're still in a much better place than minimum wage workers, but you have very little free time and American students tend to have large student debts (though I personally didn't and have never taken out any student loans). Regarding PC culture, the author of the vagina monologues does have an office a few buildings away from where I'm sitting, but that's hyena territory and lions never need to venture there. IIRC her groups' funding has been cut for several years in a row so it's not a recently growing trend, it's just something that has been in the background for some time.

Selective STEM schools seem fine. But administration is a threat as they try to include diversity programs and the like.

imo people bitching about feminism and affirmative action in universities are missing the point. i didn't get a hint of political bias in the 4 years it took to get my math degree. i did notice that whenever i had to take an engineering or comp sci class, they were noticeably dumbed-down compared to the pure math classes. i think this was because my school was one of those engineer factories that expects everyone to get a degree and land a job so the school would look good. that's a bigger problem for me than the "liberal agenda".

>>5424 Exactly, I am also more concerned about this aspect. Partly because I am part of the problem you're describing. I'm in a class of 20 fellow students, or was to be more precise because I dropped out. Were the demand for engineers in my field not this damn high, I'm sure I'd have failed far sooner. Engineer factory hits the nail on its head tough, especially given that my campus has very tight-knit connections with local and international corporations. I mean it was built for this purpose in mind after all.

>>5422 >The main issue would be exploitation of grad students which is fairly common, especially in the US. Ever thought grad students, mainly STEM students, should unionize or some such thing? Every time I see something like the video game voice actors' strike or the pay of Hollywood celebrities and CEOs compared to scientists I ask myself why programmers and engineers aren't going on strike. STEM professionals of all stripes seem to either not be very concerned that they're getting screwed, they think they'll get ahead someday due to their skills, or they just don't think they can do anything about it.

>>5422 >The main issue would be exploitation of grad students Are grad students really being exploited? Even if grad school is expensive, it's a long term investment which, depending on the degree, will yield more than enough money to account for the time and initial cost it took.

I made a post in the thread this one spun off of about how the American political science, psychology and economics communities are all soykaf and every "consensus" they have is made-up garbage. Psychology is probably the worst of the lot, followed closely by economics. Psychologists constantly do ideology-pushing trash studies with low sample sizes, crap methodology and nonexistent reproducibility, and they act like they have the same level of empiricism as a physicist to boot. The US psychology community has a long history of this sort of thing TBH. Every single study they've ever done without exception should be considered invalid unless numerous other countries replicate the results, because if there's any part of academia that's politically compromised, it's them.

I hate discussions about 'academia', colleges and about how politic-centered everything is because it's so US-centered and americans don't realize that and assume it's the same everywhere. I've studied at two different european universities (one year abroad) and I haven't encountered any whacky 'social justice warriors'. Very strict leftists, yeah, but right extremists too. And it never came up during lectures or from professors.

>>5430 Americans don't assume it's the same everywhere, we simply talk about American universities because we're American.

>>5424 same here. Every uni seems to be trying to jump on the software engineering bandwagon and pushing basic sciences far to the wayside. It's not so bad at my school because it's well-funded in general, they're actually trying to grow the math and science departments to get more prestigious, but it's still a massive problem across the board with the quality of the classes. >>5428 >Even if grad school is expensive, it's a long term investment which, depending on the degree, will yield more than enough money to account for the time and initial cost it took. it's not so much expensive as oftentimes grad students are given workloads(not study, work, like grading papers or sometimes teaching classes) that do not correspond at all to the miniscule stipend they get. It's pretty common to see grad students in the US working 60 hour weeks for barely enough to live, and if you stay in academia it doesn't get much better until get tenure, which only a tiny percentage of PhD students ever get.

>>5429 relevant

>>5440 >no reference to race was made anywhere in the thread previously >UR RACIST!11!11!!!!!oneone!!1!0|\|3!1!!!!1!1!!1!!!! This type of soykaf is why a lot of people don't take academia seriously anymore. People defending the soykafty, unscientific practices of the American psychological community and other problem areas like sociology and econ don't make any real arguments. They just hurl insults, accuse people of being racist and sexist and then project their own ad hominem onto the people they're attacking. I made specific points as to what their research is doing wrong and you haven't addressed any of them and don't appear to have any interest in doing so.

>>5442 Sciences aren't the only thing important in Universities. The humanities, when they're great, are great. The great books and such. But at this point in time only STEM is worth it.

>>5442 >>snarky goon speak yeah, totally not a racist thing to say! >I made specific points as to what their research is doing wrong and you haven't addressed any of them and don't appear to have any interest in doing so. I agree with your points, I just don't think you should be such an inflamed asshole. And, as a clear, level-headed scientist, I'm sure you understand why literally calling someone a "feminist retard" for a post that makes zero reference to feminism, in a thread with zero reference to feminism, is both an ad hominem and completely dishonest.

>>5429 >American political science, psychology and economics communities The "American" imply to "psychology and economics" too or just to "political science"? Because it's not an American phenomenon, it's worldwide, and the root is philosophycal. >Every single study they've ever done without exception should be >considered invalid unless numerous other countries replicate the results This is not very "scientific" from you. Scientific method is not based on a nationality. You should not consider invalid and scientific study because it's from a specific country or school of thought, but because it's wrong (not reproductible). If you disagree with this, you should learn the basis of science and the philosophical changes it suffered on the last century (see Vienna Circle and the fight on Scientific Realism vs Instrumentalism on the raise of Postpositivism). >nonexistent reproducibility Psychology in general does not use scientific method, as already pointed. There's some areas of psychology that do apply it, such as analytical psychology, positive psychology, cognitive-behavioral therapy and behaviorism, but most of the core ideas behind psychology are non falsiable. The conception of this area was always based on "psyche", from greek "soul". It's based on idealistic ideas (mind-body problem, a dualistic view that represents the mind as a metaphysical entity) or solipsistic, especially the modernist approach, such as psychoanalysis (Freud libido and Jung collective unconscious), daseinsanalysis, etc. That's why psychology started to fragment on 20th century to other more scientific and monist-physicalist approachs, such as neuroscience and cognitive science. >low sample sizes >crap methodology The methodology on some areas of psychology are solid, such as Skinner Box method. Most of this methodology is not applied, though. I would say that it's incompetence, but it's also about time and money. To test high sample sizes it would require a good infrastructure, time and qualified people. >ideology-pushing As said above, psychology is, from it's inception, an ideology.

I've studied in and out of academia and I must say that in general the methods they use are bad. Academia is founded on tradition and prestige, but this is its own weakness, as it makes it slow to accept change. Currently we know better ways to teach and learn than sitting in a room for two hours passively taking in information, but, that is what has been done for hundreds of years and it will continue to be done. I think they should learn a thing or two from hacker culture. A scientist should not be too different from a hacker.

Nobody has discused the, I think, most rigged part of Academia; journals. As some lain pointed out, you are fuarrrked until you are tenured (and this is true everywhere I look at, I'm a spaniard btw). But, how do you get tenured? There is where things get interesting. University deparments have internal promotion circles. When you arrive at a deparment after your PhD, you get in a line. When your turn arrives, they will check your merits. If they are good enough, you promote. Simple and meritocratic, right? Well, in theory yes. In practice is not that simple. A quick context, I'm a MSc student in CS. >On the explotation of PhD students (and other academics) First, since is meritocratic, you need to work to no end. "The chief" as we called him in the lab spent several year writing papers like a motherfucker, even on Sundays. He is now one of the most imporant people in the school. He earned, but has driven him to a mild workalcoholism. He published on topics that where hot in the time, like Aspect Oriented Programming. Nowadays he only talks soykaf about AOP. Now, you can write a ton of papers, but are they good? You can write tons of soykaf if you'd like to. There's an indicator called JCR. This indicator mostly determines your future as an academic. But, the JCR is associated with the journal! If you have published in Nature, you are a motherfucking boss. Do you think is correct to measure the curriculum of an academic by the quality of the journal he or she have published in? This leads to more questions. Now, the big things in Computer Science are Machine Learning and Security. If you publish about these topics you will go up in no time. But... what would happen if you are interested in a less famous topic right now? You will publish less papers because there's less interest. Lets suppose; Person A have a PhD in NoSQL (a hot topic, related to Big Data) but his contributions are not very scientific and more marketable. Person B have a PhD in Abstract Interpretation (not so hot topic) and have some brilliant ideas. Both academics are fighting to get tenured and they are writing until they finder bleed. Since "A" is writing about NoSQL, he gets more publications, and "B" gets less because there are less journals. Who do you think would get tenured? Who do you think should be tenured? >On political bias However, departments have politics. If you make the correct friends you have it easier. The nepotism is common place and if you want to get in there you better start playing by the rules. </rant> >tl;dr: Journals are a business and you get more publications if you publish what is hot right now, whenever you like it or not. It doesn't matter if you are the next Alan Turing, your value is on where you publish your stuff.

>>5454 >A scientist should not be too different from a hacker. To be fair, a scientist is generally spending their time outside teaching reading papers and rustling up funding to be able to do experiments.

>>5447 >a term describing people who post on a soykafty website is racist k >I'm sure you understand why literally calling someone a "feminist retard" for a post that makes zero reference to feminism The psychology community and sociology community in America are both being held hostage by feminists. Academia in general is, really. No idea they don't approve of is ever allowed to be aired even if it has a massive, compelling body of evidence backing it. It's not just the students complaining about feminists censoring them, it's the professors. >>5450 >The "American" imply to "psychology and economics" too Yes, although your points about the problems with psychology in general are valid. >This is not very "scientific" from you. Scientific method is not based on a nationality. You should not consider invalid and scientific study because it's from a specific country or school of thought, but because it's wrong (not reproductible). Nationality can tie into this. If a certain country has a political culture prone to interfere with science and selectively promote certain results and stifle others for political purposes, all of that country's research in that subject area is suspect. Nazi Germany's race-related studies are good examples of that. >Psychology in general does not use scientific method This is an ongoing issue. As you point out, there are some methods in psychology which are more scientific than others. >>5455 This post is insightful and informative. There really should be a lot more discussion about the problems with scientific journals in particular.

>>5456 a *good* scientist :) yes

>>5421 it's cancer, a bunch of people producing soykaf papers and wanking over each other, there may be good and serious stuff but it's hard to get in there if didn't suck someones dick from the start of your academic life.

>>5428 > Even if grad school is expensive, it's a long term investment which, depending on the degree, will yield more than enough money to account for the time and initial cost it took. There are many colleges and majors where your chances of even getting 1:1 lifetime ROI are slim. Google colleges ROI to take a look. >>5443 >Sciences aren't the only thing important in Universities. The humanities, when they're great, are great. The great books and such. But at this point in time only STEM is worth it. I agree! Get your STEM on, and then take some community college classes for fun when you're rich! But don't fall into that 'college is about enriching your mind first' soykaf, that boat sailed a long time ago and the story changes real quick when it comes to questioning how you'll pay back a student loan. Only take out loans for soykaf with an ROI, pay for humanities classes in cash. >You should not consider invalid and scientific study because it's from a specific country or school of thought, but because it's wrong (not reproductible). I get the philosophy here but we live in information overload and I don't pause on street corners to evaluate the merits of of every ranting street person, if a trump hat sits next to me at the bar we might have some chit chat but I'm not going to bother weighing the merits of their political views and investment strategies if it comes up. It's unfortunate and bad for humanity as a whole but filtering your information is good for you as an individual. Don't frustrate and confuse yourself trying to find kernels of sweet corn in an intellectual turd. That said you can study the core of psychology and economics without encountering a lot of fringe bullsoykaf, they're both fascinating subjects.

The defining characteristic of Western academia is its total integration with the MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. Liberal or conservative politics are incidental to that, if your college is promoting feminism or something, it's only because liberals have discovered how to make feminism useful to the MIC. Same if it's promoting conservautism or even the mythical and coveted "political neutrality," all of it is in service of figuring out more comprehensive and effective ways to enslave and massacre people in the 3rd world. EG: the STEAM trend of trying to couple arts into the STEM curriculum. Personally I'm all for it ideally, I'm absolutely sick of being surrounded by engineers who have zero artistic or philosophical literacy. However, the real point of STEAM is so that engineers will become better assistants to PSYOPS, human terrain evaluation, and will maybe become more geographically and historically literate, so that they can better adapt weaponry to specific conditions. It must be a bummer for the CIA when none of their tech heads understand soykaf about the people they're trying to triangulate and bomb!

>>5421 Academia is cancer. Here are some problems I've encountered while doing a PhD. >Professors exploit students for work. They will assign students work that is not related to their projects and that will be of no benefit to the student completing a thesis or gaining employment after having obtained the PhD. My supervisor insisted that his students put in 50+ hours a week of lab-work, lest they want to end up as failures. (Fair enough if a student wants to do that of their own accord, but enforcing it is wrong.) >Incompetent post-docs exist. They will pick the students' brains for ideas and pass the ideas off as their own. Generally incompetent people in academia are likely to be workplace bullies/nuisances. >Academia attracts people who enjoy prestige/reputation. This means that academia is swamped with posers who have better social skills than "nerds" (who are legitimately suited for scientific research). These poser types are usually fantastic at securing funds for research, however they are often incompetent at actual scientific research (hence their exploitation of others). They are also more likely to land jobs due to networking (as opposed to real talent). These types are taking up the positions that could be filled with genuinely talented people. I'm not even going to get started on the deliberate erroneous reporting of data in papers.

>>7826 >The defining characteristic of Western academia is its total integration with the MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX Dude, get real. In European universities military research is totally shunned because people like you kept crying about it. The thing is that the military industry pays well and many engineering students will join there for the money. But I do agree that STEM, especially engineering students, turn into some kind of thinking robots for the industry. They get drilled for work instead of science. The workload in today's universities also doesn't really allow students to explore different interest like art or philosophy in their free time. I did it anyway and failed at my engineering degree x----D