The DDoS Attack Of Academic Bullshit

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses the decline in the quality of academic research and publications, and how the proliferation of low-quality content has made it increasingly difficult to find reliable, high-quality information online. It draws parallels between the dilution of expertise in academia and the challenges of navigating the modern internet landscape.

🙋 Q&A

[01] The DDoS Attack of Academic Bullshit

1. What is the main point the author is making about the current state of academic research and publications?

• The author argues that the quality of academic work has declined significantly, with much of the current research being "activist bullshit", fabricated data, statistical manipulation, plagiarism, or simply watered-down summaries of previous work.
• The author contrasts this with the higher quality of academic work from the past, when it was easier to find good-faith experts and serious discussions on specialized topics.
• The author suggests that the proliferation of low-quality content, driven by factors like publish-or-perish pressures and ideological fads, has made it much harder to identify and access the genuine, high-quality research.

2. How does the author compare the current state of academia to the past?

• The author notes that in the past (e.g., in the 1940s-1990s), the average quality of academic work was much better, with more good-faith efforts by reasonably bright people.
• The author provides the example of researching the economic history of medieval China, where the best work was written during the mid-20th century, while more recent publications are mostly "shallow crap" and retreads of older work.
• The author suggests that the explosion in the number of PhDs awarded, without a corresponding increase in the number of truly exceptional researchers, has diluted the overall quality of academic output.

3. How does the author compare the current state of academia to the early 20th century in fields like physics?

• The author notes that in the early 20th century, the leading physicists knew each other and were in constant dialogue, as evidenced by the group photo of the 1927 Solvay Conference.
• Today, it would be effectively impossible for a physicist to personally know all the other top physicists, as the number of physics PhDs awarded per year has grown from under 20 in 1900 to nearly 2,000 by 2018.
• The author argues that this massive expansion in the number of PhDs does not mean that the field has advanced proportionally, and that the fraction of physicists who can generate genuine new knowledge and insight is fairly small.

4. What is the author's analogy between the current state of academia and a DDoS attack?

• The author compares the dilution of expertise in academia to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, where the minority of serious researchers are "flooded with a massive, hostile flood of bogus communication requests" from their less capable peers.
• Just as a DDoS attack overloads a server's bandwidth and prevents it from responding to legitimate requests, the author argues that the proliferation of low-quality academic work makes it difficult for the genuine researchers to find each other and collaborate effectively.

5. What are the potential consequences of the current state of academia, according to the author?

• The author suggests that intellectual progress is being held back substantially by these problems in academia.
• The author predicts that over time, the real work will move gradually, and then suddenly, into different channels that are able to filter out the noise, as the internet commentariat's intellectual elite becomes more attentive to the substance of an argument rather than the bureaucratic forms.
• The author cites the example of the 21st century's most influential philosopher, so far, being an uncredentialed blogger and fanfiction author, as evidence of this shift away from traditional academic institutions.

[02] The Decline of Academic Quality

1. What factors does the author identify as contributing to the decline in academic quality?

• The author mentions several factors that have contributed to the decline in academic quality, including:
  • Publish-or-perish pressures
  • Ideological fads
  • P-hacking and statistical manipulation
  • Fabricated data
  • Plagiarism
  • Watered-down summaries of previous work

2. How does the author compare the current state of academia to the past?

• The author contrasts the current state of academia with the past, noting that while academic work was never perfect, the average quality was much better in the past (e.g., between 1940-1990).
• The author provides the example of researching the economic history of medieval China, where the best work was written during the mid-20th century, while more recent publications are mostly "shallow crap" and retreads of older work.

3. What is the author's perspective on the explosion in the number of PhDs awarded?

• The author argues that the massive increase in the number of PhDs awarded, from under 20 in 1900 to nearly 2,000 by 2018 in the U.S., has not resulted in a proportional increase in the number of truly exceptional researchers.
• The author suggests that the fraction of physicists who can generate genuine new knowledge and insight is fairly small, and that a doctorate now "means much less" than it did in the past.

4. How does the author compare the current state of academia to other fields, such as medicine?

• The author acknowledges that while physicists have maintained intellectual and educational standards better than perhaps any other academic field, other fields, such as medicine, are in "notably worse shape."
• The author suggests that outside of the hard sciences, the situation is even more dire in terms of academic quality and standards.

5. What are the potential consequences of the current state of academia, according to the author?

• The author predicts that over time, the real work will move gradually, and then suddenly, into different channels that are able to filter out the noise, as the internet commentariat's intellectual elite becomes more attentive to the substance of an argument rather than the bureaucratic forms.
• The author cites the example of the 21st century's most influential philosopher, so far, being an uncredentialed blogger and fanfiction author, as evidence of this shift away from traditional academic institutions.
• The author suggests that if academics do not raise their standards, the real work will move into different channels that are better able to filter out the noise and low-quality content.