I recently commented on a Substack post by an immunologist who said that RFK Jr's claim about being able to see inflammation in the face was absolute BS. I commented pointing to papers which use AI to detect health status from the face, and said if it's possible to do for other health issues, why not for mitochondria? She replied (?) and then immediately blocked me. Now I can't even see the thread.
"Nullius in verba" this ain't. Academia's public communications increasingly make it look like a sort of priesthood or guild. Unitiated hoi polloi like myself are assumed to be too stupid to appreciate any sort of research or experiment-based argument.
For academics to maintain their prestige, they'd be far better off at least attempting to explain the results of their research and why they believe what they believe. If they explain their research in the same manner they would explain any Democratic policy issue, that's an excellent way to turn off ~half the population which doesn't trust Democrats on policy.
It would be so easy to actually DO SCIENCE, James Randi style, and challenge RFK Jr to an experimental test of his claim he can see mitochondrial dysfunction in the face. But certain "scientists" have stored their science brain deep in a cabinet somewhere, and have made hobby out of sniffing their own farts. Whatever happened to Richard Feynman? "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."
I would like to see models of the net benefit of forging credentials. How easy / expensive would it be to forge a PhD? You have the easiest method, which is to claim it on your resume and hope the interviewer doesn't bother checking or googling. Then you have the next level, which is to purchase a PhD from a fake university. Then you have the next level, which is literally to pay a person to do all your PhD work for you.
Assuming that getting a PhD requires 20 hours of work over 4 years, 8,000 hours, I assume that would cost $80,000, plus the cost of enrollment (although some programs actually pay you a stipend). For each of these methods (maybe there are additional methods), what is the cost, risk, reward? Can we quantify the value of a PhD as $10,000 per year, and say that these methods pay off in 8 years?
Let me try to understand what you're saying: strivers infiltrate academia, they make up fake studies, then academia must try to stop them, which hurts real research. If you just let fake studies proliferate, trust plummets and the value of research approaches 0. If you introduce tests of fakeness, you decrease the production of real studies as well. Barrier to entry.
Ideally, there would be zero barriers to entry, so that as much research could be produced as possible. But without barriers, there is a problem of pollution, where fake research is being produced.
Maybe the problem is that we are too risk averse, and too afraid of fake research. If academia was a free-for-all where anyone could do anything, yes this would produce a lot of fake research, but it would also produce more innovative/creative and ultimately productive research. We shouldn't punish the productive for the sins of the striver.
This seems to be a problem of perfectionism, of maximizing efficiency over total output, which is itself part of the striver package. The problem isn't that strivers exist within academia, but that they dominate it, and it is their mindset which drives increasing peer review. Strivers are, first and foremost, concerned with status, so their entire psychology is built to prevent reputational harm -- which peer review is meant to stymie.
The solution I believe is to introduce personality tests to prospective students to select for higher risk taking, with more intense testing for administrators. My assumption is that sports correlate with risk taking (testosterone), but there might be better ways to test this.
I recently commented on a Substack post by an immunologist who said that RFK Jr's claim about being able to see inflammation in the face was absolute BS. I commented pointing to papers which use AI to detect health status from the face, and said if it's possible to do for other health issues, why not for mitochondria? She replied (?) and then immediately blocked me. Now I can't even see the thread.
https://substack.com/@johncollis407103/note/c-150298282
"Nullius in verba" this ain't. Academia's public communications increasingly make it look like a sort of priesthood or guild. Unitiated hoi polloi like myself are assumed to be too stupid to appreciate any sort of research or experiment-based argument.
For academics to maintain their prestige, they'd be far better off at least attempting to explain the results of their research and why they believe what they believe. If they explain their research in the same manner they would explain any Democratic policy issue, that's an excellent way to turn off ~half the population which doesn't trust Democrats on policy.
It would be so easy to actually DO SCIENCE, James Randi style, and challenge RFK Jr to an experimental test of his claim he can see mitochondrial dysfunction in the face. But certain "scientists" have stored their science brain deep in a cabinet somewhere, and have made hobby out of sniffing their own farts. Whatever happened to Richard Feynman? "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."
>dating hot female (or male) students
That's considered questionable nowadays yes?
I would like to see models of the net benefit of forging credentials. How easy / expensive would it be to forge a PhD? You have the easiest method, which is to claim it on your resume and hope the interviewer doesn't bother checking or googling. Then you have the next level, which is to purchase a PhD from a fake university. Then you have the next level, which is literally to pay a person to do all your PhD work for you.
Assuming that getting a PhD requires 20 hours of work over 4 years, 8,000 hours, I assume that would cost $80,000, plus the cost of enrollment (although some programs actually pay you a stipend). For each of these methods (maybe there are additional methods), what is the cost, risk, reward? Can we quantify the value of a PhD as $10,000 per year, and say that these methods pay off in 8 years?
Let me try to understand what you're saying: strivers infiltrate academia, they make up fake studies, then academia must try to stop them, which hurts real research. If you just let fake studies proliferate, trust plummets and the value of research approaches 0. If you introduce tests of fakeness, you decrease the production of real studies as well. Barrier to entry.
Ideally, there would be zero barriers to entry, so that as much research could be produced as possible. But without barriers, there is a problem of pollution, where fake research is being produced.
Maybe the problem is that we are too risk averse, and too afraid of fake research. If academia was a free-for-all where anyone could do anything, yes this would produce a lot of fake research, but it would also produce more innovative/creative and ultimately productive research. We shouldn't punish the productive for the sins of the striver.
This seems to be a problem of perfectionism, of maximizing efficiency over total output, which is itself part of the striver package. The problem isn't that strivers exist within academia, but that they dominate it, and it is their mindset which drives increasing peer review. Strivers are, first and foremost, concerned with status, so their entire psychology is built to prevent reputational harm -- which peer review is meant to stymie.
The solution I believe is to introduce personality tests to prospective students to select for higher risk taking, with more intense testing for administrators. My assumption is that sports correlate with risk taking (testosterone), but there might be better ways to test this.