Chapter dzǵ: Tacit Preachments are the Worst Kind ȁȄȂrelevant to our topic, writers sometimes put on a display of erudition,
using techniques more advanced than are helpful,Ȁȁotherwise parading
supposed rigor, making forays into other academic disciplines, or citing
scarcely relevant but impressively obscure sources. Some of this games-
manship is no doubt tolerable: even serious researchers are entitled to a
little fun. It does little damage when it is evident for what it is. It is less tol-
erable, however, when it warps the writer’s approach to the subject matter
and his or his readers’ understanding.
Ļis situation traces partly to the incentive structure in academe. We
observe something reminiscent of the role of “success indicators” in the
Soviet command economy. Meeting the target, satisfying the criteria,
becomes the objective, crowding out attention to the wants of the cus-
tomers or—in the present context—the advancement of knowledge, the
pleasure of the quest, and the enlightenment of readers and students. Ļe
blame falls partly on administrators desiring easy-to-administer criteria
for tenure and promotion. As I have observed on committees and other-
wise, some evaluators focus not on the actual merits of scholarly work but
on the supposed prestige of the journals where it appeared, a consideration
related in turn to attunement to fads and fashions. Ļe “second-handism”
duly condemned by Ayn Rand rides high (see the passages from her works
reprinted in BinswangerȀȈȇȅ, pp.ȃȂȇ–ȃȃȀ).
series, reviewer selection for technical papers and contract proposals and university
accreditation status, and most of all, where the political currents funnel into a laser-
like beam, in the peer-review process of technical journal articles. (p.ȃȁ)Bartley’sȀȈȈǿbook is a sustained expression of doubt about the incentives at work in
academe. It explores the intrinsically unfathomable character of knowledge, shows to what
a limited extent it can be owned and controlled, and argues that universities are not orga-
nized so as readily to advance knowledge (Bartley finds them often working against its
growth). Chapters on “Ļe Curious Case of Karl Popper” and on the supposed threat
that Popper’s philosophy poses to intellectual fashions provide a case study of the book’s
contentions.
HausmanȀȈȈȁ, p.ȁȅȁ, also mentions perverse incentives at work in academic eco-
nomics.
ȀȁNot referring to academic economics in particular, Mark C. Henrie (ȀȈȇȆ, p.ȂȂȂ)
notes that an “ability to argue any side of any question demonstrates the importance of
technique; but technique alone does not provide the student any insight into which view is
true. Quite the opposite, it encourages virtuosity of argumentation for what is false, since
to argue falsehood persuasively more fully demonstrates command of technique than to
argue for what is true.”
I also suspect some inchoate notion that if falsifiability is a good characteristic of a
theory, downright falsity is even better.