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Exactly the point of the author (who I know). Not just cliquish, though, but faddish and full of misattribution of credit. I agree that all of society is susceptible to this. I think the problem is that in the sciences, we pretend it doesn't happen. With music, for example, society has a clear understanding of quality and popularity, and the distinction between the two. There might be arguments about the two, such as how strongly related they are, or whether or not quality is even a meaningful attribute of music, but I think most people understand that they are not the same, in one way or another. With science, though, we act as if they are the same. There's an assumption that, sure, there's some noise, but in the end it all evens out and attribution is correctly given and good ideas rise to the top. No corruption, taking or giving credit inappropriately, no cognitive errors or biases, no nepotism, no etc. The set of assumptions underlying science reminds me a lot of homo economicus in economics. A set of assumptions that are almost certainly untrue, with significant consequences, but which we tend to ignore out of convenience. (I actually think there should be more skeptically rigorous decision-theoretic/economic analysis of different scientific systems and structures, like game-theoretic analyses of different scenarios as they play out in science.) |