On Academics
This is a conversation from the forum on an article about republican presidential candidates not understanding economics. The issue in this conversation, as you'll read below, is separate from that of the article, and I was shocked by the statements made there.
Random Commenter: "this advice is brought to us by a guy that is in the classroom 6 hours a week and has no concept of life in the real world, as do few academics. for the most part, professors are extreme left leaning out of touch people living in an insulated world."
Random Commenter 2(Me)"I'm pretty sure you're out of touch with academics"
Random Commenter "khan, he does what other academics do, NOTHING of value. they write articles to be published in academic journals telling others like himself how wonderful he is and his ideas are. they live in a void, their "models" are just that. garbage in garbage out. btw kevin, i am very close to several academics, i know from what i speak."
Random Commenter 2(Me) "Clearly you do not. Many of them are teaching at universities while pursuing research, teaching is just an effective way of paying the bills. I would love to know who you consider to be an academic, the academics I know, who are currently teaching at U's or formerly were, are passionate about their subjects and are actively, or had been actively pursuing research. Scholarly peer reviewed journal articles represent the presentation of that work, and your portrayal of them as some kind of self aggrandizing publicity statement is so ridiculous I have to assume you've never read one."
This is the first time I've ever met with this type of criticism where our academics are concerned. Is this a common sentiment? Do people actually believe that academics provide nothing of value, do they really believe these professors are prima donna's? I realize that this entire post is full of sweeping generalizations. Certainly there are a few bad eggs in the academic community. However, the peer review process, I feel, usually weeds them out. If you're not publishing something of value, then you're not publishing, and at many schools, if you aren't publishing then you aren't teaching.
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Comment by Robert Karp on November 10, 2011 at 1:17pm -
Just silly generalizations. Remember conservatives base so many of their values on the bible that true reason, thought, science and academia are nonsense to them. In fact this type of thought goes against their way of life and way of thinking. They want nothing more than the world to end and christ to come back. Academics reinforce science, and science rejects fantastical claims of theology and that turns conservatives into attack dogs.
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Comment by Cristynfaye on November 10, 2011 at 3:19pm -
Well, I used to be of the belief that it's better to go out into the world and do something, then to sit around reading books about those things. But now I see the value in academics, and I hate that there are a tons of uneducated people running around, and making laws and running countries. I think (at least in Christianity) there is sort of a stigma about academics in general, and that most Christians do think that Ph. D's are liberals with no regard to morality. But it's only because they haven't had a chance to experience the world of academia. However, I do know several highly educated Christians...its just that most of them aren't Americans. You go to Europe and you'll find more.
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Comment by Dylan Sloboda on November 12, 2011 at 5:32am -
It seems to be part of the growing anti-intelligence sentiment in american culture.
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Comment by Kevin Strong on November 14, 2011 at 3:40pm -
I'm a little flabbergasted that there can be such a thing as an anti-intelligence or education movement. I know many of my own professors fairly well, and my brother in law is conducting research on campus for his dissertation at present, I can tell you that these are hard working people that truly believe in the value of their studies. I can't understand how anyone could malign them, or what they are doing. How do you miss the value in studies on longevity? Don't you want someone analyzing constitutional law and court decisions? Who are these people?
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