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| Sclerosis in academia The great conundrum is to fathom why, when obvious problems of a certain class are flagged up to someone in a high post in academia, he predictably proves totally unable to comprehend the problem, or understand that a problem exists.
For the last month or two I have been adrift across Europe without computer or even typewriter. Also, I have done very little reading. It was left to me to try to get to the bottom of the conundrum.
First, to describe the symptoms. When presented with "The Catt Question", it becomes obvious that those in high places are thnking under a totally different paradigm. I do not think that it is correct to conclude that their pursuit of personal advantage always leads them to fail to carry out their bounden duty. I am forced to conclude that, one and all, they are united in a totally different perception of what that duty is.
One of the key ideas stated by my uncle Canon RSO Stevens when I was young 50 years ago was that it was important for a Seat of Learning to keep Research close to Teaching. It now becomes clear that he was wrong, and that that close association is the seat of the problem.
The imperatives of teaching are totally different from those of research, and they seem to be in opposition.
What is the nature of the group of people who have by now coalesced into an impenetrable barrier to scientific advance? We have to look at the selection process which enables an individual to anter this coterie. One and all, they graduated through a gruelling learning and examination process which lasted for decades, and morphed into similar a "research" activity with some differences.
First let us look at the education process they went through up to the age of about 25. We now have to conclude that they were tested for their ability to score credit points in a selection process which identified reproductions of the teachers. They certainly were not being tested for their insight into the subject being taught and tested, but rather for their ability to reinforce the teacher/examiner's perception of the subject. this was the subject as it existed at that time, not a growing body of knowledge.
For his part, the teacher/examiner had a serious problem if he was ahead of the pack in his grasp and development of the body of knowledge. I myself, as an exmainer, have always had to examine the student for his competence in the established Body of Knowledge, warts and all, and not in his competence in the latest developments. Thus, I have myself connived in a stabilising process, where however much I might know about the errors and obsolescence of the curriculum, I always set examinations which tested for the established, rather than the correct and advancing, version of the subject. Had I done otherwise, I would very soon have been out of work, and remained out of work through the system of "References".
Now I shall conjecture as to the path trodden by every single one of our most highly placed academics, and then I will give anecdote - my own career.
If my premiss is accepted, that major scientific advance is no longer tolerated, and is comprehensively suppressed, then we have to try to suggest how this has come about. I have decided that the inevitable process is deeply buried in the worldwide teaching-examining process by which these meta-zombies, or "punkah-wallahs" as I have previously described them, are selected and/or developed in the sense believed in by the behaviourists . It is 100% effective.
These people are selected, not only for their ability to demonstrate that they grasp what the examiner grasps, but also for their inability to look beyond this. This necessary corollary makes them able in their later careers to not understand the problem demonstrated by "The Catt Question" without crisis of conscience. After so many decades of learning and then answering relevant questions in exams, they are boxed into that paradigm, which includes the belief that all questions that matter are of the style that can be asked and answered in the teaching/exam format. The significance and purpose of a Question like "The Catt Question", which demonstrates that administrative action is required, is beyond their comprehension. They have been repeatedly examined in whether they keep strictly within that intellectual framework. As Theocharis showed, should a brilliant mind which has survived and excelled in the "education" process threaten to research too deeply into his selected body of knowledge during the next "research" stage for his PhD, he will find that he cannot progress because no punkah-wallah can be found able and willing to be his "supervisor". Decades later, although having published in Nature, Theocharis remains an outsider, lacking a PhD. Generally, he is prevented from publishing in learned journals or in teaching at a high level.
Rather than contribute to science, "The Catt Question" demonstrates a deep malaise, probably terminal, in The Body Scientific. It is worth mentioning the curious array of people whom the Communists called "running dogs". For no fee or recognition, they seek to deflect attention from the sociological and administrative problem demonstrated by "The Catt Question" into a mere scientific question. This they then attempt to use as a launch pad for their own scientific theories, claiming they stand above mere sociology. In the past, they found the Establishment impervious to their own contributions. Now they try to ride their own scientific theories on the back of a non-scientific, sociological exercise called "The Catt Question".
We need to analyse why the Fourth Estate, the Media , have such a slavishly subservient attitude to Establishment Science, even taking Paul Davies seriously. Can the fact, known to many of them, that the Science Establishment presides over a rapidly diminishing empire, affect their attitude? Science faculties close, and school student numbers are falling rapidly. Journalists are unable to make a tentative connection between this decline and the state of Establishment Science.
We also have to distinguish between, on the one hand in-house disputes, like the Twin Paradox in Relativity, and on the other hand real, suppressed disputes between Establishment Science and suppressed outsiders like Hodgkinson, Hillman, Holland, Theocharis, Catt, (late) Essen FRS, (late) Einstein, Arp, and a vaste further array of suppressed first class scientists. In the former case, we have to consider the concept of the "House Radical"; the tenured lecturer wearing hippie uniform - sandals and holes in his jeans.
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