From Salvo:
An entertaining but revealing development in science culture in recent years has been the intentionally nonsensical academic paper. Earlier this year, political scientist Peter Dreier admitted at Prospect that his abstract for a panel of six years ago, “On the Absence of Absences,” was “academic drivel”:
I tried, as best I could within the limits of my own vocabulary, to write something that had many big words but which made no sense whatsoever. I not only wanted to see if I could fool the panel organizers and get my paper accepted. . . .
Well, not only was it accepted, but he was also invited to join fellow academics in Tokyo at the annual international conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science. More.
All this would be a way funnier joke if we didn’t need science.
The problem of hoax, fraud, and nonsense in science is way worse than the problems that afflict Grievance Bunny Studies, which was ridiculous and/or dangerous the day it was conceived.
Science rubbish matters because it contaminates the information stream for our loved ones fighting cancer. I care. Do you? – O’Leary for News
See also: Reproducibility problem making science extinct?
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Note: Here are all my (O’Leary for News) articles at Salvo.
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