[tmoertel]

Physicist and Bayesian pioneer E. T. Janes had a pithy take on this theme:

In any field, the Establishment is seldom in pursuit of the truth, because it is composed of those who sincerely believe that they are already in possession of it.

From Probability Theory: The Logic of Science, E.T. Jaynes, 2003.

[sva_]

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." -- Max Planck

[BurningFrog]

Often paraphrased as "Science advances one funeral at a time".

Perhaps increasing life expectancy is what's holding progress back?

[falcor84]

That makes sense, but I like the idea of longevity, and wouldn't want to their the baby with the bathwater. Maybe instead we could have some "term limit" for academic work?

[zmgsabst]

I think we see the same “ageing stagnation” in business — where increasingly old business leaders don’t retire and maintain a stranglehold on resources.

I think we need a more general cultural shift that the current generation needs to build up the next generation instead of keeping a death-grip on power that destroys their children and grandchildren.

[BurningFrog]

I don't know of any such companies, but US politics is getting done by very old people.

The major players are now typically around 80, and that seems bad for many reasons!

[pvaldes]

Not, definitely a bad idea. You need a lot of resources, money and time to train an expert. Wouldn't be impossible to recover the investment.

[falcor84]

Interesting angle. Would you have any empirical data on the amount of years of academic work needed to "break even"?

[pvaldes]

It depends in the issue, but IMAO on academia is not uncommon to spend about ten years studying a theme to became an expert on it. Plus university years. Plus school years. And there is a lot of inertia to not change your study subject.

Researchers in some parts of Europe spend around 25 years of their life (if I remember correctly the article) just trying to have a stable job, and this is criminal.

If you put an upper limit, the interval that remains is just too small to be profitable for the society and specially for the scientist. Nobody would want to do science.

Academics also spend a lot of time teaching, doing bureaucracy, and finding funds. So you have a highly trained people spending most of their expensive time not doing research.

[pvaldes]

s/wouldn't/would/

[agumonkey]

I'd add a minuscule idea to this important quote, those who settle themselves as authority often have deep insights and can see the limits of accepted ideas. Those who are taught the latest truth rarely have it, they admitted the paradigm as is. They contribute to the inertia.

[KarlKemp]

It's funny that the article rather explicitly rejects such theories of malfeasance/corruption/etc. and, instead, points to cognitive effects interacting with the decision-making process as a plausible cause that is compatible with assumptions of good faith and competence.

So, arguably, the only person confident of being in possession of the truth is the one with the ready-made cynical quote.

[edgyquant]

People don’t have to be acting in bad faith for their biases to shine through. It’s quite possible for authority to be acting in good faith and lack the insight to see some break through.

[vixen99]

I'm not sure about 'seldom' but what do I know? However the point is taken in that lots of people know this if not the metrics involved but when anyone questions the Establishment, too often the response is 'follow the science' and then they are sidelined or cancelled from areas of public discourse. Of course some of these questions and comments might amount to nutty nonsense or personal aggrandizement in which case it's open to others to demonstrate this. Isn't this most effectively done by skipping the smart rhetoric and dealing with the facts of the matter? This then leads to searching counter-questions for the initial questioner - great!

Incidentally might there not be the odd new idea buried in one of the two million publications published in around thirty thousand journals every year? Who knows?