Also this week: the death of culture (?), the worst scientific misconduct case ever (?), and more.
From Jeremy:
One silver lining about the Pruitt case was that none of Pruitt’s research had any applications. Imagine if somebody had, say, faked a career’s worth of high-profile research on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and been put in charge of NIH’s Alzheimer’s research portfolio. Except you don’t have to imagine it, it actually seems to have happened. That link goes to a major investigative report from Science. I can’t even process this, this is the worst scientific misconduct case I’ve ever heard of. Dear lord.
Very interesting short essay by John MacNeil Miller, trying to revive interest in Victorian novelist Harriet Martineau. Her work arguably prefigures subsequent ecology and environmentalism. Sample quote from the essay, to encourage you to click through:
By downplaying all the widely glorified aspects of being human, Martineau refocuses readers’ attentions on all the ways humans are bound into much larger networks of beings.
I’m pretty sure I found the essay more interesting and enjoyable than I would find Martineau’s own writing. The suggestion is that Martineau had to give up on both characterization and a compelling style, in order to achieve “intricate interspecies plotting.” Paraphrasing the essay in an only slightly unfair way, the pitch for reading Martineau is: “You should totally read this style-free, characterization-free novel about how human lives are upended by unexpected patterns of rainfall and the movements of fish.” Let’s just say that isn’t the most compelling pitch for a novel that I’ve ever heard. Which just illustrates the essay’s point, of course. And to be fair, I have enjoyed other novels and movies that downplay visual/literary style and characterization, in favor of plot. David Mamet movies, for instance, or the movie version of The Music of Chance. Back in college, I even enjoyed movies that did away with visual style, characterization, and plot. My Dinner With Andre, for instance, or Mindwalk. Anyway, curious to hear any counterexamples readers can think of–novels and movies that focus reader attention on “all the ways humans are bound into much larger networks of beings,” without giving up on style and characterization.
What if universities just published all the data from their professors’ annual reports (# of pubs last year, committees served on last year, courses taught last year, etc.)?
In praise of BlueSky, the non-toxic echo chamber. As I understand it, the suggestion is that, in the present environment of political polarization in the US, “echo chamber” is a prerequisite for (though not guarantor of) “non-toxic.”
According to a preprint, media coverage of preprints spiked early in the pandemic, but by the end of 2023 it had declined back to pre-pandemic levels.
Is culture dying? Very interesting essay.
2-D Likert scale. 🙂