The bear drawing reminds me of the Brown Bear book. Did he replicate it? Nevertheless, little O is talented. Maybe he can be the illustrator of your book or you can incorporate his drawings into your articles.
It is interesting to watch the universities respond. Mostly, it seems to be outrage.
I think most Americnas would appreciate a more constructive approach.
Admit that there are problems and propose solutions that make every one better off.
For instance, research funding has been treated as a gravy train. Everyone involved knows that there are massive inefficiencies, that much research is just junk, and many publications serve only the careerist interests of the authors. Various scientific sins are being committed from P-hacking to outright fraud.
"Csaba Szabo, a professor at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, confronts this chaos head-on, previewing his recently published book, Unreliable. His verdict? The scientific system is fractured beyond repair, and Band-Aid fixes won’t cut it. Nothing short of a revolution will do. Szabo’s journey into this quagmire began casually—over beers with colleagues in New York during a sabbatical. The question that kept surfacing was simple yet haunting: “Why is it that nobody can reproduce anybody else’s findings?”
It’s a problem scientisthttps://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/03/09/the-crisis-of-unreliable-science-a-pharmacologists-call-for-radical-reform/
Wouldn't it be something if a bunch of leading scientists and universities got together and proposed a new system for funding and publishing research. How about having outside bodies propose the questions and having the labs bid on the research? How about making all data and publications public domain? After all we are paying for it. How about committing funding to reproduce research findings before final publication?
I am not a scientist. I am a taxpayer. I like to fund scientific research. I have given my own money to that purpose. But, I also see Retraction Watch.
Your child (O. Khan) is clearly a talented young artist already. That drawing is light years beyond my grandchildren's art work that adorns our refrigerator.
Didn't you publish a drawing by one his older sibs a couple of years ago that also drew my admiration for his talent?
I've been trying to get back to that slow pleasure of deep thinking that I had in the time-before-the-newsfeed. (Was it ever real? Or did I just imagine it?) To that end, I've been trying to engage less with algorithmically-recommended content (e.g. scrolling on X or substack.) More time on magazines, printed books, curated posts. This is very helpful.
The great human being of $&$$(&$(#% once said something so profound I decided to get off my reading chair and take in the country air and all its surround
Bye bye.........I'm going on a hike.
You can sit on your ass and read or write down your profound thoughts for others to enjoy.
I love odds and ends posts like this. I have a notebook almost full of scattered prompts and notes and sketches that I might turn into a post. This was inspiring.
Your work is great and thought-provoking but what in the UK why are 99.9% of academic sociologists Marxists?
A highly successful "closed shop" takeover is probably the answer, though the soft nature of the "science" probably contributes as barriers to entry in terms of scientic rigour are so low.
The great English historian AJP Taylor (of whom Ferguson is a fan) described WWII as a war to decide whether the results of WWI - the redrawing of national boundaries - would stand. But Taylor certainly didn't share Ferguson's belief that Germany's goals were limited or misunderstood. His whole career was marked by a profound distrust of Germany; to the extent that he described Hitler's foreign policy as solidly in the mainstream of German tradition. And he didn't mean that as a compliment to traditional German foreign policy.
I think Ferguson was far too sanguine about the results of France losing WWI as a result of the non-involvement of the UK. And if the resulting domination of Europe by Wilhemine Germany was as harsh as seems likely to me, then the UK's involvement was more justified than Ferguson believes.
The bear drawing reminds me of the Brown Bear book. Did he replicate it? Nevertheless, little O is talented. Maybe he can be the illustrator of your book or you can incorporate his drawings into your articles.
"To Save Academia, Hire Conservatives."
It's too late baby, it's too late.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkKxmnrRVHo
It is interesting to watch the universities respond. Mostly, it seems to be outrage.
I think most Americnas would appreciate a more constructive approach.
Admit that there are problems and propose solutions that make every one better off.
For instance, research funding has been treated as a gravy train. Everyone involved knows that there are massive inefficiencies, that much research is just junk, and many publications serve only the careerist interests of the authors. Various scientific sins are being committed from P-hacking to outright fraud.
"Csaba Szabo, a professor at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, confronts this chaos head-on, previewing his recently published book, Unreliable. His verdict? The scientific system is fractured beyond repair, and Band-Aid fixes won’t cut it. Nothing short of a revolution will do. Szabo’s journey into this quagmire began casually—over beers with colleagues in New York during a sabbatical. The question that kept surfacing was simple yet haunting: “Why is it that nobody can reproduce anybody else’s findings?”
It’s a problem scientisthttps://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/03/09/the-crisis-of-unreliable-science-a-pharmacologists-call-for-radical-reform/
Wouldn't it be something if a bunch of leading scientists and universities got together and proposed a new system for funding and publishing research. How about having outside bodies propose the questions and having the labs bid on the research? How about making all data and publications public domain? After all we are paying for it. How about committing funding to reproduce research findings before final publication?
I am not a scientist. I am a taxpayer. I like to fund scientific research. I have given my own money to that purpose. But, I also see Retraction Watch.
Your child (O. Khan) is clearly a talented young artist already. That drawing is light years beyond my grandchildren's art work that adorns our refrigerator.
Didn't you publish a drawing by one his older sibs a couple of years ago that also drew my admiration for his talent?
yes. my kids can draw. mom has good visual abilities and i was a pretty good drawerer as a kid
Always loved the Louis C.K. joke about how we live like royalty, but are adult babies who always find something to complain about.
I've been trying to get back to that slow pleasure of deep thinking that I had in the time-before-the-newsfeed. (Was it ever real? Or did I just imagine it?) To that end, I've been trying to engage less with algorithmically-recommended content (e.g. scrolling on X or substack.) More time on magazines, printed books, curated posts. This is very helpful.
Any strategies for information hygiene?
i give myself an hour to read. no point in reading a book for 15 or 30 minutes. if i can't allocate that, don't bother
The great human being of $&$$(&$(#% once said something so profound I decided to get off my reading chair and take in the country air and all its surround
Bye bye.........I'm going on a hike.
You can sit on your ass and read or write down your profound thoughts for others to enjoy.
It's such a beautiful day...got to go.
I love odds and ends posts like this. I have a notebook almost full of scattered prompts and notes and sketches that I might turn into a post. This was inspiring.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/fragments-and-miscellanea-vol-4
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/fragments-and-miscellanea-vol-3
Your work is great and thought-provoking but what in the UK why are 99.9% of academic sociologists Marxists?
A highly successful "closed shop" takeover is probably the answer, though the soft nature of the "science" probably contributes as barriers to entry in terms of scientic rigour are so low.
The great English historian AJP Taylor (of whom Ferguson is a fan) described WWII as a war to decide whether the results of WWI - the redrawing of national boundaries - would stand. But Taylor certainly didn't share Ferguson's belief that Germany's goals were limited or misunderstood. His whole career was marked by a profound distrust of Germany; to the extent that he described Hitler's foreign policy as solidly in the mainstream of German tradition. And he didn't mean that as a compliment to traditional German foreign policy.
I think Ferguson was far too sanguine about the results of France losing WWI as a result of the non-involvement of the UK. And if the resulting domination of Europe by Wilhemine Germany was as harsh as seems likely to me, then the UK's involvement was more justified than Ferguson believes.