| Oh dear... a monkey has escaped from the circus and is telling us the truth about what's going on inside it. > "The primary objects of modern science are research papers. Research papers are acts of communication. Few people will actually download and use our dataset. Nobody will download and use our model—they can’t, it’s locked inside Google’s proprietary stack." The author is confusing the concept of 'science as a pursuit that will earn me enough money and prestige to live a nice life' - in which, I'd say, we can replace 'science' with 'religion' and go back to the 1300s or so - with science as the practice of observation, experiment and mathematical theory with the goal of gaining some understanding of the marvelously wonderful universe we exist in. Yes, the academic system has been grotesquely corrupted by Bayh-Dole, yes, the academic system is internal blood sport politics for a limited number of posts, yes, it's all collapsing under the weight of corporate corruption and a degenerate ruling class - but so what, science doesn't care. It can all go dormant for 100 years, it has before, hasn't it? 125 years ago you had to learn to read German to be up on modern scientific developments. Wake up - nature doesn't care about the academic system, and science isn't reliant on some decrepit corrupt priesthood. P.S. Practically speaking, new graduate students should all be required to read Machiavelli as an intro to their new life. |