Comments by "" (@kunibald128) on "The Thesis that Killed Academia?" video.

  1. Sabine I think that if there was a misunderstanding it probably originated from the sentence at 3:34 "I do not want to pay for it." This comes across as the cornerstone of the video and it really sounds like an endorsement of the trend that you now say you only meant to describe without endorsing.
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  2. ​ @SabineHossenfelder  But would not this line of argument apply to literally everything that is currently being paid by taxes? Public spending is needed in some areas and education (from basic school to PhD) is one of them.
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  3.  @SabineHossenfelder  Thank you for your reply. Now you have clarified that with "I do not want to pay for it" you meant: "I understand that some people are angry that their taxes are funding some mediocre research." It is perhaps true that some publicly funded research is mediocre, but the example chosen in this video is very bad because (by your admission): 1) The work in question may not be mediocre. 2) Many of the people who are angry at it formed their opinion in an irrational way, merely triggered by a set of keywords. From these premises, the logical and most educational conclusion should be to call out the angry people for their fallacy and try to explain why often research that is seemingly useless is instead actually useful. Then again, do expose (if you wish and as you have done in the past) examples of actually mediocre research, strictly limited to the field where you are in a position to express such judgement, but please always make sure to put a very clear and explicit distance between those examples (on which you can offer solid arguments and knowledge) and the examples on which the public is forming irrational opinions on. They simply are not examples of the same phenomenon and conflating them together in one single discourse is highly dangerous (in my opinion).
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  4. My opinion is highly subjective and is not meant to be disrespectful, but I have the impression that Sabine's take on this one is almost borderline with populism. Again I may be wrong but these are the steps that I see in this video and make me think of that: 1) Take a complex subject which for some (usually irrational) reason has come to be hotly debated by the public despite most people being illiterate about it. 2) Present a superficial analysis of the subject (in this case, drawing conclusions on an entire thesis based on its abstract), mainly in the direction of reinforcing the public sentiment, especially when it is negative. 3) Apply wild generalizations (in this case, from this thesis to the whole academia) and on this basis declare without an actual proof the existence of a huge problem or even an emergency. 4) Suggest drastic and simplicistic solutions that may superficially sound satisfying to the laymen but cannot work in practice (in this case, cutting public funding to fundamental research).
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  5. These would be good suggestions for a thesis in science, not for literature.
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