Why I left my tenured academic job

Re:Why I left my tenured academic job by didibus on Sunday October 04, 2020 @07:32PM (#24683096)

I'm curious if the meritocratic system that we have now in a way is counterproductive. It assumes that only the smartest and best could advance scientific knowledge, so we have a system that tries to filter for them, but obviously, it fails or ends up being a time sync even to those, rendering them less productive.

But maybe this is not what scientific advancement takes. All you might need is randomly choose someone passionate about it, and just give them free reign without condition, no time limits, no stress, to just express their passion.

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Re:Why I left my tenured academic job by LudwigNagasena on Sunday October 04, 2020 @09:07PM (#24683645)

But the problem is that system is not meritocratic. Otherwise there would be no need for “publish or perish”. PhD is no longer a credible signal, that’s the problem.

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Re:Why I left my tenured academic job by adrianN on Monday October 05, 2020 @01:25AM (#24684779)

The system is meritocratic, you just don't agree with its definition of merit.

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Re:Why I left my tenured academic job by albertTJames on Tuesday October 06, 2020 @09:42AM (#24697569)

I am pretty sure every scientist would agree. But the issue arise because there are too many scientists/passionate/smart people for limited resources. What you are describing does happen for a selected few, the extremelly gifted esp. in maths and physics live their research career in this bubble.

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Re:Why I left my tenured academic job by solveit on Sunday October 04, 2020 @09:09PM (#24683658)

I'm enthusiastic about this idea, with the caveat that I worry filtering for passion will be much harder (given that we must assume candidates will actively seek to hack the filtering process) than filtering for ability.

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