Unravelling – or how we lost science
I’m back at work on my next book, Science in Turbulent Times (20??) which has changed much since I first thought about it. The book is now an account of the rise and decline of science. There’s no golden age left. All that we have is Temu tin foil painted in gold. Like most decorations […]
An AI-assisted pipeline for personalized assessment for an online sociology course
Discussions of artificial intelligence in higher education are, as you might imagine or might have seen, highly polarized. For some, it is a radical break from the past, as represented most notably by Ethan Molick’s nearly evangelical work promoting AI (🙄). For others, it’s a just a plagiarism machine, a costly gimmick that has no […]
Arday, Harper, and Stock walk into a bar…
Anyone who’s ready my work might know that I’m a bit of a fan of Max Weber. Sure, he’s not free of controversies and got several things a tad wrong (who hasn’t?), but he’s provided some unsurpassable zingers (“until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt” being a personal favorite). And from all he […]
California Democrats Don’t Actually Care
There’s a common misconception reproduced by pundits and politicians alike that, come November, a vote for the Democrats will be a vote to re-establish the rule of law and institutional order that was once also mistakenly assumed to just exist. This belief, while maybe/perhaps/possibly true in the most general way, is particularly strong among scientists […]
It’s time to get rid of the peer-reviewed paper
The peer-reviewed journal article, perhaps the single most important device behind the expansion of scientific knowledge in the last century, is an extraordinarily expensive way to share novelty: expensive in time, in labor, in infrastructure, and in the cognitive resources of the people who write, review, edit, and read it. No wonder it occupies the […]
AI’ed
A central element of the sociology of scientific knowledge a la Edinburgh is the principle of symmetry: accounts of success should also be able to make sense of failure; what explains how some things go up should also explain other’s downfall. Whatever social processes made neuroanatomy successful should also make sense of phrenology’s decline, without […]
Reading is fundamental. Even for Regents.
UC San Diego was recently in the news and not for the best reasons. Following the publication of a comprehensive report written by faculty and administrators on the preparation of recent undergraduate admits, journalists and pundits across the political spectrum turned on the soundbite machine and got to work. The report was a clear sign […]
Beyond the Metrics: How AI Can Help Faculty Highlight Crucial Contributions in Advancement and Promotion Reviews
Academic advancement is built on explicit and implicit standards that define the contributions of faculty, typically divided into three categories: Research, Teaching, and University/Public Service. At a large public university, such as my own institution, contributions in research and teaching are often quantified using metrics like publication output or teaching effectiveness scores to guide evaluations […]
Circles of Hell
Which is worse: an institution being coerced into accepting a $500 million penalty (bribe), or an institution being punished and prosecuted for sticking to their absolutely legal and legitimate mission and values? It depends, I guess, on who we are talking about. If the first happens to be the wealthiest university in the country and […]
Elite Dislocation and the Politics of No Return
In between nervously freaking out about the future of higher education and education more generally, I’ve been thinking about possible tomorrows. Will we come back from this? Will we rebuild the institutions we are seeing collapsing before our eyes? Throughout the turmoil, I’ve been a pessimist. Entropy goes one way—and reversing its effects takes energy […]
The midification of higher education
By now, faculty, staff, and administrators across US higher education are waking up to the realization that this crisis is definitional: however we come out of this mess, it will be permanently and fundamentally changed. Our institutions, our professions, and our craft will never be the same. Predicting exactly what will happen is difficult and […]
The Problem with Progressives
The last six weeks have been tough. Although most of what has happened was entirely predictable (there was an actual playbook), the speed at which longstanding, bipartisan structures have been attacked and dismantled has been overwhelming (also, in the playbook). What makes these last six weeks since the inauguration particularly difficult is the lack of […]