[quote]
thunderbolt23 wrote:
Strangely though, I am the one arguing for more “market forces” in academia to remedy its ills, while you defend the sclerosis. Oh well.
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
The market does enter into the equation. If there is no demand for science there will be no new scientists. Perhaps you are confusing the means to the ends? It is impossible to operate outside the market. There has to be a demand for new scientists/scholars before there can be a supply.
You cannot just produce Ph.D.s and expect there to be a demand. Keynesian theory is flawed in this respect.[/quote]
Although in the case of publicly funded universities, the government creates the market, at least the market for the science professors and government-funded research.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Although in the case of publicly funded universities, the government creates the market, at least the market for the science professors and government-funded research. [/quote]
Not entirely true. Government funding cannot even be applied for until there are approved projects to fund. Not only that we still have to compete within the department and the other departments for funding.
The only sure funding are from private endowments – most of which are from retired/dead scholars who donate to specific types of research. The market is alive and well in that we have to prove ourselves. Scarcity of funding makes us very competitive. Though I agree, doing away with government funding altogether would make us more so.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Fox news is evil with it’s right-wing leanings. Well, that’s often the impression I get from a number of posters here. Yet, left-leaning academia warrants no more than a “ho-hum, no biggie.”[/quote]
For the last fucking time, FOX isn’t evil because it’s conservative. It’s crap because it lies often, and has an even greater amount of sensationalism than the other networks.
And just because the acedemia leans left doesn’t mean they’re letting that influence their teaching. How the hell does being liberal set a bias in a biology class? Hell, I can only think of a few, select classes where it’d matter, and even then it’d only matter in such a way that you’d get both sides anyway.
And just because the acedemia leans left doesn’t mean they’re letting that influence their teaching. How the hell does being liberal set a bias in a biology class? [/quote]
How about using the class to opine on stem-cell policy?
And just because the acedemia leans left doesn’t mean they’re letting that influence their teaching. How the hell does being liberal set a bias in a biology class? Hell, I can only think of a few, select classes where it’d matter, and even then it’d only matter in such a way that you’d get both sides anyway.[/quote]
The entire humanities department and most of the soft sciences qualify as “a few, select classes where it’d matter”?
The market does enter into the equation. If there is no demand for science there will be no new scientists. Perhaps you are confusing the means to the ends? It is impossible to operate outside the market. There has to be a demand for new scientists/scholars before there can be a supply.
You cannot just produce Ph.D.s and expect there to be a demand. Keynesian theory is flawed in this respect.[/quote]
This, of course, is sidestepping the point presented. The lack of market forces is not the demand or supply for “scientists” - it is the lack of competition created by tenure and useless publication requirements.
Tenure and publication act as protectionist measures - barriers to entry. And like any outdated union, the measures keep lazy, bad professors on the job.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
The entire humanities department and most of the soft sciences qualify as “a few, select classes where it’d matter”?[/quote]
Agreed. I think all universities are concerned with Keynesian theory of economics and do not teach from other perspectives unless for purely academical purposes, for instance like with Marx. I don’t think the effects have been positive.
That would be considered unethical. I would like to know where you get your knowledge about the inter-workings of university professors. [/quote]
This is news to you that professors slide in editorials? How about economics professors that lament that current policies don’t do enough to mitigate the widening gap between the rich and poor? How about law professors that ask their entire class, on the day it was announced that Bush had won the 2004 election, if they “wanted to talk about it” instead of doing class materials, so the class could have a chance to “heal”?
You’d be amazed what happens in the world outside your constructed fantasy.
[i][Ilya Somin, October 12, 2007 at 5:53pm] Trackbacks
Affirmative Action for Conservative Academics?
Harvard economist Greg Mankiw notes the mounting evidence that conservatives are underrepresented in academia, and suggests a possible remedy (without necessarily endorsing it):
The underrepresentation of conservatives (and, I would add, libertarians) is almost certainly not all due to ideological discrimination. But evidence suggests that discrimination is probably at least a part of the story ( http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/reports/Politics_Faculty.pdf ). In this excellent Econlog post ( Tabarrok Should Bask in His Victimhood - Econlib ), economist Bryan Caplan explained why ideological discrimination is more likely to flourish in academia than in most other employment markets. Even aside from discrimination, the ideological homogeneity of much of academia causes a variety of problems, such as reducing the diversity of ideas reflected in research, skewing teaching agendas, and generating the sorts of “groupthink” pathologies to which ideologically homogenous groups are prone ( Page Not Found :( ).
However, whether or not the discrimination is the cause of the problem, affirmative action for conservative academics (or libertarian ones) is a poor solution. Among other things, it would require universities to define who counts as a “conservative” for affirmative action purpose, a task that they aren’t likely to do well. Affirmative action for conservatives would also give job candidates an incentive to engage in deception about their views in the hopes of gaining professional advancement. Moreover, conservative professors hired on an affirmative basis despite inferior qualifications would find it difficult to get their ideas taken seriously by colleagues and students. They might therefore be unable to make a meaningful contribution to academic debate - the very reason why we want to promote ideological diversity in hiring to begin with.[/i]