Tag Archives: democracy

The new poster girl of the technocrats

The debate over research privatization is intensifying. Here is my annotated transcript of Sabine Hossenfelder’s latest video.

I recently angered some people by saying that if I had any choice in the matter, I wouldn’t want my taxes to pay for research on the description of smell in the English literature. Some have taken that to mean that I want to defund all of academia. So let’s talk about it. Should we defund academia?

I appreciate all experts in English literature; it’s part of our cultural heritage, like many other things worth preserving. Acknowledging my own limitations, I avoid commenting on topics like English literature or dark matter, as they are beyond my expertise. So why doesn’t SH recognize hers? Continue reading The new poster girl of the technocrats


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When science fails

Science fails if there is no gain in knowledge. At least in my research field the majority of papers does not provide any significant new knowledge leading even to the incredible notion “Beam me up”. Paper output is reaching an all time height as reported in a recent Nature commentary [1, 2]. Continue reading When science fails


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