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Universities are failing to boost economic growth

economist.com

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Re: Universities are failing to boost economic growth

#11

Post by y45y45 »

OldGuyInTheClub wrote: post #7

Universities exist to educate young people and set them on the path to lifelong growth. This shift to being a cheaper place for industrial research is a nauseating aberration. There is nothing wrong with applied research, having practical goals in mind, or spinning off research findings. When they become the objective, we get the reproducibility and integrity crises that reach and remain on the HN front page every da…

Is it the industrial research where the reproducibility crisis is actually manifesting though? Most evaluations I've seen of it suggest that while it's a universal phenomena it tends to be concentrated in the social/activist sciences. In most areas of industrial or applied focus it seems like much less of an issue because ultimately the science of boats has to be at least coherent enough to stand the trial of putting them in the water.

Re: Universities are failing to boost economic growth

#12

Post by Gooblebrai »

> Universities are supposed to produce intellectual and scientific breakthroughs that can be employed by businesses, the government and regular folk. In theory, therefore, universities should be an excellent source of productivity growth

This assumption is truly horrible. Capitalism has absorbed one of the last bastions of educational development and repurpose it for its unlimited growth hunger.

Reminds me of the popular idea of schools focused more on developing factory worker traits than good humans.

Re: Universities are failing to boost economic growth

#13

Post by OldGuyInTheClub »

y45y45 wrote: post #11
OldGuyInTheClub wrote: post #7

Universities exist to educate young people and set them on the path to lifelong growth. This shift to being a cheaper place for industrial research is a nauseating aberration. There is nothing wrong with applied research, having practical goals in mind, or spinning off research findings. When they become the objective, we get the reproducibility and integrity crises that reach and remain on the HN front page every da…

Is it the industrial research where the reproducibility crisis is actually manifesting though? Most evaluations I've seen of it suggest that while it's a universal phenomena it tends to be concentrated in the social/activist sciences. In most areas of industrial or applied focus it seems like much less of an issue because ultimately the science of boats has to be at least coherent enough to stand the trial of putting…

Consider medical and pharmaceutical research being conducted at Universities. Stanford's President had to resign because the work done under his name was both very lucrative and very suspect. Theranos came out of Stanford as well.

A USC neuroscientist is now under suspicion of manipulating clinical trial data for a drug his company is developing. https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2023-11-24/usc-neurosc...

A food scientist at Cornell got canned for p-hacking. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/09/26/651849441/co...

And so on.

Re: Universities are failing to boost economic growth

#14

Post by noobermin »

OldGuyInTheClub wrote: post #7

Universities exist to educate young people and set them on the path to lifelong growth. This shift to being a cheaper place for industrial research is a nauseating aberration. There is nothing wrong with applied research, having practical goals in mind, or spinning off research findings. When they become the objective, we get the reproducibility and integrity crises that reach and remain on the HN front page every da…

It's simple, there are two currents on this aspect on HN, one are those who find it an issue and others who think see universities as cheap labour and thus are the target of rags like the economist here. I'm not sure how the latter find the incessant postings of articles about academic problems, they probably tune it out perhaps or don't make the connection.

Re: Universities are failing to boost economic growth

#15

Post by noobermin »

y45y45 wrote: post #11
OldGuyInTheClub wrote: post #7

Universities exist to educate young people and set them on the path to lifelong growth. This shift to being a cheaper place for industrial research is a nauseating aberration. There is nothing wrong with applied research, having practical goals in mind, or spinning off research findings. When they become the objective, we get the reproducibility and integrity crises that reach and remain on the HN front page every da…

Is it the industrial research where the reproducibility crisis is actually manifesting though? Most evaluations I've seen of it suggest that while it's a universal phenomena it tends to be concentrated in the social/activist sciences. In most areas of industrial or applied focus it seems like much less of an issue because ultimately the science of boats has to be at least coherent enough to stand the trial of putting…

What the hell is an "activist" science?

Re: Universities are failing to boost economic growth

#16

Post by kwere »

universities for working class folks need to be a place to learn employable meta-skills. College enviroment being a space for personal growth, leisure, socialization is more of elitist legacy of a begone era where companies would train you from zero and most of students didnt really need to sell their labour to make a living (why unpaid interships exist).

Re: Universities are failing to boost economic growth

#17

Post by sokoloff »

kwere wrote: post #16

universities for working class folks need to be a place to learn employable meta-skills. College enviroment being a space for personal growth, leisure, socialization is more of elitist legacy of a begone era where companies would train you from zero and most of students didnt really need to sell their labour to make a living (why unpaid interships exist).

If employable skills and meta-skills need to be learned (as they do), it seems like apprenticeships and the like are a far more efficient and effective way to pass those along.

Re: Universities are failing to boost economic growth

#19

Post by paulspl »

noobermin wrote: post #15
y45y45 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it the industrial research where the reproducibility crisis is actually manifesting though? Most evaluations I've seen of it suggest that while it's a universal phenomena it tends to be concentrated in the social/activist sciences. In most areas of industrial or applied focus it seems like much less of an issue because ultimately the science of boats has to be at least coherent enough to stand the trial of putting…

What the hell is an "activist" science?

Probably what we usually call "soft science" so political science and similar

Re: Universities are failing to boost economic growth

#20

Post by nickd2001 »

OldGuyInTheClub wrote: post #7

Universities exist to educate young people and set them on the path to lifelong growth. This shift to being a cheaper place for industrial research is a nauseating aberration. There is nothing wrong with applied research, having practical goals in mind, or spinning off research findings. When they become the objective, we get the reproducibility and integrity crises that reach and remain on the HN front page every da…

And an irony is, if you do indeed keep the focus on learning, some lucrative spin-off buinesses seem inevitable. So, paradoxically, if you want the most lucrative benefits/ boost to the economy, you have to avoid doing anything to seek that and focus on learning instead. Only when you completely abandon the goal of making money off of any of it, do you then actually have more chance to start making money off of it. ;)
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