Quote of the day, research edition

In the modern British university, it is not that funding is sought in order to carry out research, but that research projects are formulated in order to get funding. I am not joking when I say that a physics lecturer called Einstein, who just thought about the Universe would risk being sacked because he brought in no grants.

From a letter to the Times by Prof Sir Fergus Millar.

Comments

[AlecM]

To suckle at the teat, first of all you must kiss the ****.

[Sherlock1]

Yep - as pointed out WAY back in 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' (Channel 4, about 5 years ago)...

Scientist to reporter alongside camera (not verbatim): 'Its no good trying to get funding to do a research project on the behaviour of squirrels. You have to say that you want to research the effect of climate change on the behaviour of squirrels...'

[peter2108]

Yes I experienced this. Exactly as he says. Actually worse - Professor A. would support the application for a grant by Professor B (in another university) in the expectation that the favour would be returned.

[AlecM]

Academics collect and guard piles of dung.

I've been one, so I know how the system works.

It produces narrow specialists who can't think from basic principles so can't challenge pseudo-sciences like Climate Alchemy.

Thinks of that discipline as the blind leading the blind: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.phrases.org.uk/images/the-blind-leading-the-blind.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/67150.html&h=211&w=376&sz=33&tbnid=XPh26HhCEZ1CzM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=160&zoom=1&usg=__T9NJ8o3pb08i8wPqpDu_lG1uJTI=&docid=0FksDbXHQisKuM&sa=X&ei=ScZzUtGKOKfB0QWsuYDoDQ&ved=0CEwQ9QEwBA

[Philip Foster]

There is a similar 'purple passage' about this in Crichton's 'State of Fear'. In the views of the (slightly) fictitious Prof Norman Hoffman. Worth reading the whole chapter, but herewith a short extract:
"What happened," he continued, "is the universities transformed themselves in the 1980s. Formerly bastions of intel­lectual freedom in a world of Babbittry... they now became the most restrictive environments in modern society. Because they had a new role to play. They became the creators of new fears for the PLM (politico-legal-media complex). Universities today are factories of fear. They invent all the new terrors and all the new social anxieties. All the new restrictive codes. Words you can't say. Thoughts you can't think. They produce a steady stream of new anxieties, dangers, and social terrors to be used by politicians, lawyers, and reporters. Foods that are bad for you. Behaviors that are unacceptable. Can't smoke, can't swear, can't screw, can't think. These institutions have been stood on their heads in a gener­ation. It is really quite extraordinary.
"The modern State of Fear could never exist without universities feeding it. There is a peculiar neo-Stalinist mode of thought that is required to support all this, and it can thrive only in a restrictive setting, behind closed doors, without due process. In our society, only universities have created that— so far. The notion that these institutions are liberal is a cruel joke. They are fascist to the core, I'm telling you."

[Johnbuk]

Poor old Lewandowsky won't get a minutes peace, Prof Miller's behaviour will have to be rationalised now. Everyone's mad bar Lew.

[Memoryman]

AlecM
You used to be a pile of dung?
How very self-deprecating of you

[Charlie]

This is partially a result of expansion after the Robbins Report. Instead of creating new universities , the government should have expanded the existing ones and ensured they provided the same level of tuition, course content and rigor as Oxbridge/IC.

Articles recently have said that Oxbridge tuition actually costs £16k/yr to provide. The reality that even in the lesser Russell Group Universities, especially in the arts, environmental sciences and social sciences the amount of lectures, tuition, course work and rigor of the examinations are significantly less than Oxbridge.

An analogy is entry into the Parachute Regiment, Royal Marine Commandos, SAS and SBS . Their selection and training criteria are based upon what they need to achieve and they have past experiences to prove they are correct . One could not increase their numbers by more than 10-20% without decreasing quality. A recent article in Prospect stated that there is only a fixed percentage with the physical and mental ability to enter the special forces. Universities should be centres of academic excellence , the academic equivalent of entering the Parachute Regiment ,Royal Marine Commandos or becoming a military pilot. More money is spent on training a Royal Marine or Para than a normal soldier because they have proved they are worth it. Spending on training on SF increases even further because , through selection, they have proved they can benefit from it and be of use.

I suspect the pre-Robbins standard of education between Oxbridge and other Russell Group/redbrick universities was not that great, especially in the 1930s.
If todays money was spread around the pre-Robbins universities then the following may happen.
1. Academics would have sufficient money and time such that research produced more or less conclusive results.
2. The standards between the best Oxbridge graduate and the worst Russell Group /Redbrick University would not be that great. This would reduce dominance of Oxbridge.
3. Academics would have the resources such that they would not exist in a "publish or perish environment". They would the time and money to examine research in neighbouring fields and discuss it more widely. 5 excellent papers are of more use than 10 mediocre ones.

This problem of poor standards in many newer universities is highlighted in Anthony Sampson's " The Anatomy of Britain -1982: I recommend his 1965 version as well plus books by C Northcote-Parkinson. The introduction of the RAE was because it was recognised that 10-15% of academics given tenure were not good enough. However, there was no objective information to sack them so a process had to be set up to weed them out.

The old system was also much cheaper for pupils. Most professions could be entered at 16 or 18 without going to university. The high standard of A levels meant degrees were only 3 yrs duration. Master were only needed if one was changing direction within one's subject, say moving from an area of pure to applied work. A doctorate could be completed in 3 years ( or even less) without needing to undertake 4 years of undergraduate study and a masters. It was possible to obtain a doctorate at 22, 23 or 24 years of age- Lord Bill Penney , Rector of Imperial was awarded doctorate at 22 years of age.

In 1919 average Cambridge fellows salary was 4 times the average wage. If we had the half the number of academics but doubled their wages, sacked the worse fifty percent and closed down many lesser universities, we would have a much better quality university system. Make all science undergraduates have maths and physics or maths and chemistry A Level and we would have much better tertiary level science. Make all arts graduates have Latin O level and at least European Language at A Level and hopefully we would make sure arts graduates were literate and cultured.

[hunter]

Excellent point. This is a fundamentally corrupting process. It will inevitably lead to politicization and brueaucratic imperialism.
The line between grant seeking and rent seeking is dangeroulsy small and easy to cross.

[Pharos]

The primary source of government research funding in the Earth Sciences is NERC, the Natural Environment Research Council. It used to be a benign funder for pure blue sky natural science research, more or less block allocated to institutions offering postgrad research support. Research project targets were left largely to university departmental discretion. Now it seems that all research needs to conform to specific agendas centrally dictated.

http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/programmes/

These agendas now revolve around an induced culture whereby a sort of prosecutorial witchhunt takes place on the field of your choice but only the discovery of a potential human caused negative impact assures the key to continued future funding.

[clipe]

Letter to the National Post from Madhav Khandekar (retired scientist, Environment Canada), Markham, Ont.

Global warming has its benefits

Re: Not-So-Wild Thing, Kelly McParland, Oct. 29.

In an attempt to placate various environmental groups, Wild Rose leader Danielle Smith is now using the worn-out mantra of “reducing greenhouse gases to stop global warming.” If she had done her homework, she would have noted that a recent study by Prof. Richard Tol who concludes that a warmer world has been beneficial to world humanity. He also says that additional warming, up to 3C, would benefit humanity in terms of grain yields and reduction in human fatalities due to extreme cold.

Canadian environmentalists have ignored the beneficial aspects of the modest warming the world has experienced so far wheat and barley yields have increased substantially on the prairies in the last few years. Elsewhere, China and India have doubled their rice and wheat yields in last 25 years, thus helping their citizens to live better and healthier. And extreme weather events are no more frequent today than they were during the Dust Bowl years of 1920s and 1930s on the Prairies.

Environmentalists who advocate carbon tax to reduce future extreme weather are living in a fantasy.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/11/01/todays-letters-it-pains-me-to-see-the-conservatives-imploding/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KUsQSwQKEA

[Szilard]

Completely off-topic, but OMG Fergus Millar!!! I'm a wild fan-boi. If you're into ancient history, read absolutely everything of his you can find.

[eSmiff]

The professional classes have disappeared to be replaced by hordes of frightened, wage slaves who shut their mouths and do what they are told. The consumer psychiatric drugs industry is a humungous evil scam carried out with the assistance of gangs of street yobs called GPs. Allegedly

[retireddave]

@Philip Foster

Well as they say "What is the opposite to diversity?"

Answer. "UNIVERSITY"

@Charlie

Very true. There are more university lecturers today than there were university students in the 1960's.

[The Engineer]

The whole system with proffessorships and long terms of employment at universities, based partly on teaching, but also contracted numbers of new papers / term has been undermining science for decades now.

I would hazard a guess that there is a "twin" Global Warming paper for many original papers.
For example a paper producing original models for salt damage on european monuments, depending on humidity might shortley after be followed up by a twin paper where the same models are now infused with future data for global warming:

Hey presto - two papers for the price of one - two terms of employment for the price of one - two grants even.

And even better yet another "climate expert" to add to the 97% concensus (even though the paper is irrelevant).

[ombzhch]

As a foreigner, Swiss, I am constantly amazed by the continuing failure:

1. To test new initiatives first.

2. To ignore the principle of unintended consequences.

3. On failure not to revert to the Status quo ante, rather than embark on a new untested fix.

This has caused the destruction of the universities by:

A. Wrong goal, the advancement of human (scientific, mathematical and logics) is the entire purpose

B. Teaching is a necessary evil of regeneration of researchers and teachers, not a goal of itself

C. University education is ONLY of benefit to the creative, immaginative and intellegent, may be 5-10% of the cohort, 50% is nonsense.

D. Turning Academic staff into office workers, and making them accountable sin, because of inflated numbers, they cost so much is counterproductive.

E. Allowing Senior, ie non-working "Perfumed Professor Princes", Industrialists and Civil Servants to determine research direction has reduced the financial efficiency of research by over 90%.

Grüss, omb

[AlecM]

@Memoryman: a post-doc is part of the dung pile; dig your way out or suffocate.

[osseo]

Well said, Sir Fergus!

[Jonathan Jones]

Szilard, one of the joys of Oxford is that above a certain level of seniority you never really retire, but just hang around eating lunches and writing books and letters to the press, saying precisely what you think and damn the consequences. Fergus was a Professorial Fellow at my college and is now an Emeritus Fellow: a brilliant historian and a great guy as well.

[Tomcat]

Dear Government-Grant Sirs and Madams
If you send me money, I will research ideas by which you can justify raising more taxes.