next »

[totoro]

The point of all the research academics do is keep their jobs, get ahead on the academic ladder, etc.   It has nothing to do with improving things beyond their personal status.    This is readily evident if you consider research in social sciences and humanities, most of which is little more than self-pleasure.   

I don't agree with that. At least not as a blanket statement.... But then I'm in a public policy school. Maybe much of our work doesn't have much impact, but it is aimed at impact.

[mingus]

There will always be claims and cries to the contrary, some quite believable too, but the truth is that if one sits down and thinks hard about it, there is only one inevitable conclusion: most academic research is just fancy wanking.   Not that there is anything fundamentally wrong with any sort of wanking.

[highway61]

Mingus, you're a classic!! "This is readily evident if you consider research in social sciences and humanities, most of which is little more than self-pleasure." Wonderful!

"There will always be claims and cries to the contrary"--you are so right!

"Most academic research is just fancy wanking"--love it!

More, more, please!