
Why professors are writing crap that nobody reads - nixtaken
https://newsin.asia/why-professors-are-writing-crap-that-nobody-reads/
======
hzhou321
I think the real question is how to justify funding a professor who has
nothing to prove his value.

Recall in history how often we rediscover certain great theory or study of one
or some underpaid scholars hundreds of years later? I believe it is reasonable
to agree that we need keep funding to support a population of scholars whose
contribution cannot be readily and accurately assessed. On the other hand, we
also cannot afford to support every one who merely claim to be a scholar. So
the question is how to keep the balance.

Shall we assume having professors writing articles that no one reads, is one
mechanism to keep that balance? Even though the mechanism itself is far from
ideal, but until something better prove itself, it is a futile argument.

~~~
geofft
Right, the thing that rubs me the wrong way about this article is the
assumption that, because nobody reads what these professors are writing, the
work is crap and should not have been done.

The real solution to the problem is that we should find ways to get more
people to read what these professors are writing! (Which will also have the
side effect of improving the quality of any portion of it that truly is crap.)

~~~
thu2111
Professors are paid to write. They get paid to write even if nobody reads what
they write. Is it really such a strange assumption that in many cases nobody
reads what they write becauase it's just the academic equivalent of SEO spam?
Manipulating h-index scores is not unheard of.

Having read quite a lot of research papers over the years from relatively
'hard' subjects, I can't honestly say it's helped me in any way. The ones in
computer science tend at least to be mostly free of logic errors or misleading
descriptions, but venturing into other fields is a reality check: way too many
papers are terrible even in supposedly respected journals.

The article points out a frequent problem of terrible papers: they cite other
papers that don't actually say what the cited claim is saying. "Of those
articles that are cited, only 20 percent have actually been read." If so few
people are even reading the papers, is it any wonder nobody reads cited papers
to check the citation is valid? This happens even in fairly important
scientific and medical papers, so I can't imagine how bad it gets in religious
or gender studies.

------
rosstex
This was debunked:
[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03063127145356...](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306312714535679)

~~~
disqard
The article you linked to, does not appear to debunk the thesis mentioned in
TFA, namely, most academic papers are never read by anyone other than the
author(s) and the reviewers.

~~~
geofft
The thesis in TFA is " _82 percent of articles published in the humanities are
not even cited once_." This claim is unsourced, but it's the same form of
claim that's debunked by the linked article (once you scroll past the stuff
about spinach): " _The main problem with the 45 percent figure is not that we
have to work hard in order to find out where it comes from, nor that it is old
and rather irrelevant for the situation in 2012. We have in fact stumbled
across yet another academic urban legend._ "

------
jvanderbot
Most magazine articles probably are never read either. Same with news
articles. Academic publications are "news for specialized research" nothing
more.

~~~
thu2111
Magazines and newspapers that literally nobody is reading eventually go
bankrupt. The system has ways to keep that in check. Not so in academia, which
is immune to market forces.

~~~
jvanderbot
.. because it is subsidized for public good, my friend (I argue). Also, I said
the journals are the product, not the articles. And every journal issue gets
readers, and the number of readers is market-inducing, but many articles in
those journals do not (at least not yet).

~~~
thu2111
If the papers are crap and nobody reads them it's not the public good, it's
just waste. As for journals, those are paid for mostly by universities, which
are themselves funded by governments.

Really, academia is just an entirely parallel economy to the real one, but
it's a closed loop planned economy in which the ultimate end goal of making
technology people like is subverted to artificial targets like quantity of
papers published.

~~~
jvanderbot
This isn't universally true. Industry has significant contributions to
conferences. And industry can borrow much from academia, just on a 10-20 year
delay and with significant down-selection. Academic / industry crossover and
revolving doors are a very healthy thing ... see self driving cars. Not to
compound the discussion, but industry-government-academic partnerships are all
over the place doing real good, including again the self-driving car examples
(DARPA->Academics->Industry->...?)

------
aazaa
> 82 percent of articles published in the humanities are not even cited once.

No references to source data. Hard pass.

~~~
Finnucane
97 percent of citations are not read either.

~~~
dijksterhuis
70% of statistics are made up.

------
jseliger
Also useful: "The Research Bust:" [http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-
Research-Bust/129930/](http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Research-
Bust/129930/)

It focuses mostly on the humanities; I think the simple answer is that tenure,
promotion, publishing, and hiring have settled into a negative equilibrium,
but no individual has the power to alter the equilibrium, even when an
individual recognizes the problems.

------
begemotz
This is a re-posted article (probably without permission) from this 2016
article: [https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/why-professors-
are-...](https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/why-professors-are-writing-
crap-nobody-reads/)

The original article has a few hyper-links to some sources (with varying
degrees of credibility).

------
msapaydin
Many reward systems around the world reward the number of papers and not the
number of readers of a paper. Many biographies simply include the number of
papers by such and such author. This further contributes to the crappy
situation.

------
Rochus
> _The goal of all professors is to get tenure, and right now, tenure
> continues to be awarded based in part on how many peer-reviewed publications
> they have._

This is a sad truth and the consequence of a total mistaken development.
Professors are forced to be marketers, money collectors and managers. One must
not forget that the peer reviewers are also professors, who try to improve or
strengthen their position through this role. So both the authors and the
reviewers lose time, which is then lost in research or student support.

------
ogogmad
I think if you want people to learn about a subject, it's probably better to
edit Wikipedia than to write books or papers on it. It's the first (and last)
place most people look.

~~~
voidhorse
Yeah, but there's a huge difference between publishing bleeding edge research
that may still have fluctuating epistemic status and publishing literature
reviews/overviews/surveys of the core foundations of particular fields that
are well-studied and proven.

Most academic journals publish the former, not the latter. Academics are
typically publishing research they think will push their fields forward some
day or illuminate something as of yet misunderstood. These papers typically
require _lots_ of subject area knowledge about the current cutting edge
research and landscape of very specialized fields--thus partly explaining the
low readership.

I think it'd be a mistake to try to jam everything, especially theories or
results for which the jury is still out, into wikipedia. The average person is
not typically scientifically literate and has difficulties distinguishing
between claims that have substantial evidence and history backing them and
more recent claims that are still being researched.

Also, what's up with this article? It's quite insubstantial and has little to
no content, let alone careful analysis of the situation. It's quite evident to
me that it's biased garbage with an agenda of tricking poorly educated people
into thinking modern higher-education is a waste of time and money (spoiler
alert--it isn't, and without it we wouldn't even have many of the practical
commercial developments (usually not associated w/ academia) we see today).

~~~
abricot
> Academics are typically publishing research they think will push their
> fields forward some day or illuminate something as of yet misunderstood.

Is that the dream or is it the reality?

I think I've heard plenty of anecdotes to the contrary (or is it simply the
self-derogatory way scholars talk amongst themselves)

~~~
candiodari
Why not both?

Most research directions ... are useless, don't pan out, don't have the tools
to actually achieve anything yet, won't ever get finance for necessary
tooling, ... and fail. Useless is the least bad of these. Nevertheless, papers
on these are important for a lot of reasons. And one in hundred research
directions succeeds. And then there's tons of "refinement" papers.

First reason: you won't know which is which until you try. Second: researchers
learn a lot even when exploring things that won't work (in fact this is often
done as exercise). Third: these allow institutions, infrastructure, ... to
exist, to be ready when there is something that does pan out.

------
woranl
Academic journals are not news articles or Facebook posts begging for eye
balls.

If only a few of them that are important enough to help push humanity forward,
then that is good enough.

------
jmole
Students spend their entire K-12+ careers writing crap that no one reads. Why
are we surprised when it should continue beyond that?

~~~
goldcd
That did suddenly make me think.

Normally we write in the hope that many will read and appreciate our output.
At school many write, in the hope that just one will.

------
CawCawCaw
Also, Sturgeon's Law.

------
geofft
This is simply an instance of Goodhart's Law, that when a measure becomes a
target, it ceases to be a useful measure. Universities (and the social
structures that provide money to them for them to pay faculty) want to pay
professors for doing worthwhile research and advancing the state of human
knowledge. They've settled on publications as a measure for that goal - and
the measure has become a target.

However, I'm not sure I agree with the followup claim of this article: " _One
unfortunate effect of this specialization is that the subject matter of most
articles make them inaccessible to the public, and even to the overwhelming
majority of professors. ... increased specialization has led to increased
alienation between not only professors and the general public, but also
between the professors themselves._ "

The evidence given that the work of professors is inaccessible to the public
and also to other professors is the fact that one journal has published
articles with the following three titles: "Dona Benta’s Rosary: Managing
Ambiguity in a Brazilian Women’s Prayer Group", "Death and Demonization of a
Bodhisattva: Guanyin’s Reformulation within Chinese Religion", and "Brides and
Blemishes: Queering Women’s Disability in Rabbinic Marriage Law". The author
thinks that it's obvious that nobody cares about these articles and that
they're crap.

Here are the articles and parts of their abstracts:

\- [https://academic.oup.com/jaar/article-
abstract/84/3/776/1751...](https://academic.oup.com/jaar/article-
abstract/84/3/776/1751661) " _This article describes the rituals and beliefs
of an upper-class Catholic women 's prayer group in a small city in southeast
Brazil. My interest centers on why there is so little friction within the
group when it would seem to have several potentially significant internal and
external tensions. There are stark doctrinal differences between members: some
have very liberal and even syncretic beliefs while others express very
conservative, exclusive Catholic beliefs. At the same time, the group—despite
certain unorthodox beliefs and practices—maintains close relations with
representatives of the local Catholic Church and prays jointly on occasion
with an evangelical group...._"

\-
[http://www.academia.edu/download/52637206/Meulenbeld_Death_a...](http://www.academia.edu/download/52637206/Meulenbeld_Death_and_Demonization_690-726.pdf)
" _The Chinese goddess known as Guanyin may commonly be referred to with the
Buddhist epithet of 'bodhisattva,' yet her many hagiographies contain only the
most stereotypical references to anything that could be defined unambiguously
as 'Buddhist.' Instead, the narrative of Guanyin that gains greatest
popularity between the twelfth through the nineteenth centuries is one that
describes the bodhisattva's last incarnation, as the unmarried Princess
Miaoshan, within the parameters of indigenous Chinese religion—or, rather, its
demonology. I argue that all of the many versions of Miaoshan's legend
represent her deification into Guanyin as a process necessary for solving her
spirit's demonical status that has arisen from the recurring violence done to
her body by herself and her father...._"

\-
[https://www.academia.edu/download/39308303/2015_Brides_and_B...](https://www.academia.edu/download/39308303/2015_Brides_and_Blemishes-
Queering_Womens_Disability_in_Rabbinic_Marriage_Law.pdf) " _... While analysis
of disability in Jewish thought has primarily focused on the limits that
disability places on men 's capacity to fulfill specific religious
obligations, a feminist intersectional analysis of disability discourse in
rabbinic marriage law illuminates the deeply gendered nature of disability.
While notions of male disability focus particularly on the occupational stench
of low-class work, rabbinic texts conceptualize women's disability in
primarily visual terms. ..._"

All seem pretty interesting to me, and all seem very personally relevant to
vast swaths of the general public - Catholics and more generally Christians
who worship alongside people of varying levels of orthodoxy, Chinese
Buddhists, and Jewish people who care about rabbinic marriage law,
respectively. All seem like pretty easily accessible topics to anyone in the
general public with an interest in religion.

I wonder to what extent the problem is that none of these three are
interesting _to the author_ , a former senior fellow at a Koch-affiliated
think tank who received his doctorate in systematic theology at a Catholic
university. Perhaps, to him, discussions about productive communities inviting
syncretic variants of Catholicism are not worth being covered in the Journal
of the American Academy of Religion, let alone discussions of Buddhism or
Judaism, let alone anything with the word "queering".

~~~
Apocryphon
Guanyin is a fairly major figure within traditional Chinese folk
religion/Taoism/Buddhism, and appears in other Asian Buddhist traditions, so
is definitely worthy of study within the field.

While all three might be considered niche by the author, at the very least
they serve as historical records that untold future generations may use to
better understand their past.

~~~
geofft
Right, there are, what, hundreds of millions of worshippers of Guanyin in the
world?

Meanwhile, the author has multiple peer-reviewed publications about John Henry
Newman and fasting. Speaking as someone who worships at Anglican churches, has
a copy of _Apologia pro Vita Sua_ , and makes something of an attempt to
follow Anglican traditions around fasting (the ones that would have been
familiar to Newman), I can assure you (with some sadness) that there are
nowhere near a hundred million people today who care about Anglican fasting
practices in general, and that the tradition is almost certainly about to die
out. (Perhaps it's unfair of me to pick on the author - but I think it's also
unfair for the author to have picked on other academics in his field, when he
could have said, "After spending years writing about Newman's fasting
practices, I realized I'd have more impact on society by joining libertarian
think tanks, and that's a problem for academia," and it would have been a much
more convincing argument.)

------
aborsy
The vast majority of academics are there for power and status. I rarely see a
true scholar, and nearly always bizarre characters and politicians to say the
least.

Politics in academia is especially vicious.

~~~
smitty1e
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law)

"The politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low"

~~~
aborsy
I had heard of the Kissinger’s comment, but didn’t know it’s also related to a
law!

