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A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture

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Re: A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture

#151

Post by Thiez »

coldtea wrote: post #110
M277 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you don't subscribe to that belief, you still have something to lose -- conscience. Conscience doesn't really die overnight (and this is from my experience of living in a corrupt society), it's a death-by-a-thousand-cuts situation. The beginning is "Come on, everyone is doing it" and you can guess the end.

> Conscience doesn't really die overnight Well, some are ruthless and competitive without coscience even as kids, and continue so...

I think children tend to be pretty cruel when given the chance, many of whom grow up to be decent people. While there are certainly bad people out there who were already rotten as children, I don't subscribe to the theory that people are born perfect and then somehow experience moral decay as they grow older.

Re: A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture

#152

Post by jessaustin »

shrimpx wrote: post #66
tobmlt wrote: post #19

I want to express sympathies in a particular way: When I had a job I didn’t want, in a city i didn’t want, no kids, no wife, and prospects abounding, it was easy to speak truth to power. I did it, and I was right technically, businesswise, and morally. What a win...(?) Now, I have my dream job, my dream location, my own damn house, and my family. -Whole thing feels like a dream I might wake up from if I am not carefu…

Tragically, a non-trivial number of Ph.D. students commit suicide. It's natural to gradually put all your eggs in the imagined Ph.D. outcome (e.g., an idealized notion of a professorship) with increasing depth as the years wear on. After multiple years and a huge emotional and intellectual commitment, if you start to see the cracks in the structure, and you cannot reconcile the newly perceived reality with your model…

An experience I had as an undergrad of walking around a not-yet-bleached spot on the sidewalk in front of Pierce played some role in my not going to grad school.

Re: A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture

#153

Post by 8note »

greenonions wrote: post #148
coldtea wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's the even more secural interpretation "who said I don't respect/recognize myself? Those 'morals' are just ideals and don't exist, meanwhile I have the world".

That's not an interpretation, that's just pointing out that people who do not have a strong conception of themselves or have self-imposed limits on their behavior according to their moral system have no reason not to blindly pursue enhancing their material wealth.

They don't have a reason to pursue that material wealth either

Re: A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture

#154

Post by pbzcnepu »

andi999 wrote: post #135

The article is all over the place with a lot of innuendo. I mean I do not want to play detective, I want the case served on a silver platter

for more details than you possibly want go here: https://pbzcnepu.net/isca/timeline.html

though it is more about the ACM/IEEE side of things rather than what was going on in Florida.

Many researchers seemed to know there was weird stuff going on with peer-review at ISCA, but if you asked the researchers they'd just shrug and more or less say something to the effect of "don't hate the player, hate the game"

Re: A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture

#155

Post by pm90 »

yowlingcat wrote: post #105
pm90 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that’s a good idea. The analogy with financial debt is misleading: people go bankrupt even if they don’t do anything “wrong”, things don’t pan out, or disasters hit. For people that do commit financial crimes, they are prosecuted and face criminal punishment and often lose their ability to continue to be involved in finance. Academia doesn’t have that kind of strict laws, likely because academic fraud d…

> For people that do commit financial crimes, they are prosecuted and face criminal punishment and often lose their ability to continue to be involved in finance. Wealthy white-collar criminals often only face minor fines and are able to keep operating. The industry perception of people who get caught (who are known to still be only a small percentage of those who commit them) is almost universally "they were stupid…

The low rate of prosecution doesn’t mean that the laws are useless. It has coerced the financial industry into behaving in more pro-public ways than it would have without them. In this case it would likely ensure that academic frauds are not engaged in lightly.

I don’t think Research fraud specifically has much connection to student loan debts. Most PhD students are fully funded by their programs. Most of them are international students anyway and would likely not have access to the sweetest US based loans.

Re: A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture

#156

Post by 8note »

dash2 wrote: post #38
adev_ wrote: post #11

I'm gonna get enemies for that .... But let's face it: the Academia peer review process is pretty rotten. - Many organisations could not care less about whatever crap you publish as long as you publish. And if possible a lot. - Many journal's reviewers are friend of friends and you can often easily guess their names, even in double blinded review. - Many reviewers care more about you quoting their own paper than givi…

My experience is different. Peer review is far from perfect but: * Most of my papers have had thoughtful comments. Typically, they improved the paper, sometimes a lot. * I have very rarely been asked to quote a specific paper from a specific author. Of course, pointing out important references that the paper has missed is part of peer review, so this would not necessarily be evidence of corruption. * There are loads…

I find it intriguing that reproducing the experiment isn't a part of the review, or visiting the lab to look for potential flaws in their set up.

These reviews seem far from what you hear about for disproving N rays and the like

Re: A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture

#157

Post by tlringer »

marcosdumay wrote: post #118
chii wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but it also gives the moral hazard of someone wanting to start such a regime, because they know they can profit/garner personal wealth during their reign, then beg for amnesty after a while (when it looks like their grip on power is lowered), and possibly, hiding their wealth gained away somewhere secret. Where as, in a world where such amnesty doesn't exist, they may have to face the possibility of being executed wh…

There must always be punishment. The comments above are too summarized to get into it, but when that kind of amnesty happens, it is never complete. But if the punishment is so crass that the people prefer to lose their lives instead, that's a clear signal that your society has a problem, and your new regime isn't all that good either.

Students under abusive advisors like this should not be punished and in fact are currently not punished. The power structures are too fundamental.

The problem is that if you cross your advisor, good luck getting a job later.

Re: A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture

#158

Post by rmk »

bachmeier wrote: post #72
tobmlt wrote: post #19

I want to express sympathies in a particular way: When I had a job I didn’t want, in a city i didn’t want, no kids, no wife, and prospects abounding, it was easy to speak truth to power. I did it, and I was right technically, businesswise, and morally. What a win...(?) Now, I have my dream job, my dream location, my own damn house, and my family. -Whole thing feels like a dream I might wake up from if I am not carefu…

> I know academia being f’ed is a big part of it I'm sorry, but I have to strongly disagree with the way you've ended your comment. This lets the people responsible off the hook. The guilty party is an individual (and perhaps several individuals). Academia, peer review, conferences, and organizations didn't cause this. The professor was responsible. He wasn't just a cog in the system.

The whole point of the blog post is that the University Department is supporting the (allegedly guilty) Professor to the hilt.

There are countless such scandals, including an epidemic of Title IX sexual assault "investigations", where universities are repeatedly shown to be supporting the wrongdoer.

Academia is definitely f'ed up. In this case, the family of the person who committed suicide don't have any recourse: it's up to the university department to give a semblance of justice, which they have apparently failed to do.

Re: A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture

#159

Post by tlringer »

jdthedisciple wrote: post #79

I never understand why phd students who are going through mental torture don't just quit their phd program. I mean ... noone can force you to finish a shi*y phd right? Why not just drop out and pursue sth that actually fulfills you? With your Masters degree / diploma in your pocket and the vast theoretical knowledge you have all doors standjng eide open for you, don't you?

This student was an international student. If he quit, he would have lost his visa and had to leave the country.

Re: A Dishonest, Indifferent, and Toxic Culture

#160

Post by dehrmann »

adev_ wrote: post #11

I'm gonna get enemies for that .... But let's face it: the Academia peer review process is pretty rotten. - Many organisations could not care less about whatever crap you publish as long as you publish. And if possible a lot. - Many journal's reviewers are friend of friends and you can often easily guess their names, even in double blinded review. - Many reviewers care more about you quoting their own paper than givi…

This sounds like something like the tragedy of the commons or Gresham's Law for academia. It's in everyone's best interest to do take advantage of the system, at least as long as there's public support for academia.

I don't see the situation getting much better. Republicans like free-market solutions, but not facing market constraints is part of the value of academia. Meanwhile, especially with consternation around student debt, Democrats will blindly support academia, failing to put any pressure on it.

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