Comments on: What needs to change in academia?

By: Luke Lea

Luke Lea — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:38:45 +0000

English universities, which have been around a long time, have gone through periods when they were very poor and others when they got good again. Our best universities may get good again, but only after the present generation of academics passes from the scene. Sort of the way quantum mechanics replaced classical mechanics: not by persuading the classicalist, but just waiting until they died.

By: j mct

j mct — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:14:15 +0000

I looked inside that thing and saw Pinker there, and watched for a little while about his Big Idea and it was about bringing the thought of the Enlightment to the less enlightened corners of the world. Per Summers little spiel about epistomology, one might ask Pinker if he should start a little closer to home.

Along with Mencius, I think universities have gotten to the point where I don’t think they’re reformable at all. One of of the obvious markers of how rich a society are is that we let them continue to exist. One of the remarkable things about universities is that with a few exceptions, namely k-12 education, a bit about the law, and empirically grounded scientific consensuses, what people in universities think has little to no impact on anything done or thought in the US. This is a good thing obviously, though it would be better if one could get them out of k-12 education and the law and keep the science part. Hopefully we’ll close them down for the cash like Henry VIII did when he closed the monasteries, their institutional ancestors, if people keep giving them money.

By: Guest

Guest — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:48:21 +0000

It seems Summers is talking around a point with a very large circumference. He sounds as non-sensical as Greenspan did when he was simply making hedging gibberish while purposely inflating several bubbles.

Summers does not want to be at the center of another media storm like he faced when he simply got to the point.

By: Michael Blowhard

Michael Blowhard — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:00:35 +0000

I watched the video and I have no idea what point or points he was trying to make.

His manner is a little disconcerting. But, fwiw, I’ve known people with Parkinson’s and his manner doesn’t remind me of them.

By: bioIgnoramus

bioIgnoramus — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 12:48:49 +0000

@ Mencius: a Cambridge friend of mine has long said that he wants to be a member of as many Colleges as possible so as to gain from their inevitable demutualisations.

By: bioIgnoramus

bioIgnoramus — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 12:47:21 +0000

Why would you ask Pinker and three twerps? Why would anyone care what the twerps have to say?

By: Mencius

Mencius — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 10:25:37 +0000

"What needs to change in academia?"

I can certainly think of some more direct questions than that:

"What are these things we call 'universities'?"

"Where did they come from? Why do we have so many of them? How have they become so influential? What has their net effect on the society around them been? If you didn't have them, would they have to be invented? Or would you invent something else instead? Maybe something, like, totally different? If the latter, assuming that we just leave them alone and let them do their thing, how long will it take to turn into something different? And will it be the different thing you want? Or is it more likely to be some other, like, different thing?"

In other words, it strikes me that we are dealing with a question of pathology here. How bad can the problem be? Who the heck knows. I'm sure most people's opinion differs from mine.

But at least as far as diagnosis goes, shouldn't every option be on the table? Shouldn't one at least consider the possibility that what we call a "university" is indeed a fundamentally malignant form of social organization, and the efforts of all right-thinking intellectuals should be devoted not to reforming the institution, but figuring out how to terminate it - or at the very least reboot it?

Bear in mind, we know how the present authorities that actually, at present, control the universities got to be where they are. They arrived on a wave of ethnic gang violence, unleashing the tactics Tom Wolfe described so well in Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers against any outpost of the responsible postwar Establishment which dared to for a moment resist them. Surely this implies that any effort to "reform" the universities would require some tactic even more vicious and unscrupulous than ethnic gang violence. Even if this could be imagined and made to work, I'm sure the results would be even worse.

Thus I don't think the universities are reformable. And if they are problematic but not reformable, they are malignant.

Therefore, there is only one policy to take with the universities: sell the land and buildings, add the proceeds to the endowment, convert the whole thing to a mutual fund, and distribute its shares equally among the alumni. The whole process could go through in a month or two. All the affected people are smart, and surely they would have no trouble finding work.

By: Forrest

Forrest — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 09:48:05 +0000

Big think is a joke. To expect that any meaningful information can be gleaned from 2-minute celebrity sound bites is absurd. That medium will remain the purveyance of poets and troubadours.

Complex ideas are still communicated the old-fashioned way through reading, writing and arithmetic (and the occasional long lecture.)

By: Caledonian

Caledonian — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 08:48:44 +0000

Where else could his (really quite reasonable) views be aired? Even the people non-indoctrinated enough to acknowledge what he’s saying don’t want to be painted with the same tar brush he attracted.

I will be interested to see the quality of interesting ideas the site showcases.

By: GMM

GMM — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 08:08:30 +0000

This may already be obvious to readers on gnxp, but Laurence Summers is actually an investor in the website that this video was pulled from.

It's an interesting idea, actually.
Read more about it here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/technology/07summers.html?_r=1&em&ex=1199854800&en=dd2360ad1c206cea&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin

By: TGGP

TGGP — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 01:25:59 +0000

I remember Caplan saying “Hmm” a lot, but despite how loudly he doth protest his nerdishness, he came off as a better speaker than Summers.

By: razib

razib — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:11:47 +0000

he’s an economist. did you see bryan caplan’s mannerisms on his bloggingheads.tv appearance?

By: vicneo

vicneo — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:58:50 +0000

a little off topic but does larry summers have parkinsons disease??? his facial expressions (or lack thereof) seem to suggest this.

By: Forrest

Forrest — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:10:33 +0000

A female Fields Medalist is predicted to surface once every 103 years:

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/math.htm