[Imc-makerspace] Fwd: [Yasmin_an] "Slow Science" Science Petition

Tue Aug 2 18:42:56 CDT 2011

I think that this is related to the "Education Bubble"  (See: Ph.D glut)
http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/10/peter-thiel-were-in-a-bubble-and-its-not-the-internet-its-higher-education

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[Yasmin_an] "Slow Science" Science Petition
Date: 	Tue, 2 Aug 2011 10:21:33 -0500
From: 	roger malina <rmalina at alum.mit.edu>
Reply-To: 	YASMIN ANNOUNCEMENTS <yasmin_announcements at estia.media.uoa.gr>
To: 	yasmin_announcements <yasmin_announcements at estia.media.uoa.gr>

Yasminers

Jean Marc Levy-Leblond is circulating the"SLOW SCIENCE' petition
that was started July 17 by Joël Candau, October 29, 2010 (published
July 17, 2011)

2011/8/2 Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond<Jean-Marc.Levy-Leblond at unice.fr>

  http://slowscience.fr/

here is a poor on line translation, i couldnt find the english version

there needs to be a SLOW ART-SCIENCE mouvement too !!

roger

For a movement Slow Science

Researchers, teachers and researchers, we hasten to slow down!
Liberate us from the Red Queen Syndrome! Let us not wanting to run
faster and faster, ultimately, stand still, if not the reverse! Like
the movement Slow Food , Slow City or Slow Travel , we call to create
the movement Slow Science .

Look, think, read, write, teach takes time. This time, we did more or
less. Our institutions and beyond, the societal pressure promote a
culture of immediacy, urgency, the real-time, lean production,
projects that are occurring at an increasing pace. All this is done
not only at the expense of our lives - every colleague who is not
overworked, stressed, "overbooked" passes today for original,
apathetic or lazy - but to the detriment of science. The Fast Science
, like Fast Food , favors quantity over quality.

We multiply the research projects to try to live our laboratories,
which often cry poverty. Result: we have just completed the
development of a program and, by merit or by chance, got a grant, we
must immediately consider meeting the next tender, rather than devote
ourselves entirely to the first project.

Because the appraisers and other experts are themselves always in a
hurry , our CVs are more often evaluated the number of lines ( how
many publications, how communications, how many projects?), a
phenomenon that causes an obsession with quantity in scientific
production. The result also unable to read everything, including the
most advanced areas, besides the fact that large numbers of articles
not only are never mentioned but are never read, it becomes
increasingly difficult to locate the publication or communication that
really matters - the one the or colleague will have spent all his time
for months, sometimes for years - among the thousands of items
duplicated, sausage, reformatted, when they are not more or less
"borrowed ".

Of course, our training must always be "innovative" obviously
"powerful", "structure" and adapted to the "evolution of business,"
changes that have been otherwise very difficult to identify contours
of constant motion. The result in this race to the "adaptation", the
issue of basic knowledge to pass on - knowledge which, by definition,
can not be included in the term - is no longer on the agenda. What
matters is to be in tune with the times, and especially to change
constantly to keep the "air" also changing.

If we accept the responsibilities managers (university councils,
management of departments or laboratories), as we are all required to
do during an academic career, we are immediately forced to fill out
case after case, often giving same information and the same statistics
for the umpteenth time. Much more serious, the effects of invasive
bureaucracy and meetingitis - the latter phenomenon for the sake of
appearances of collegiality while emptying it of its essence generally
- mean that no one has time for anything: we must to comment on the
applications received the same day for implementation the next day!
While we caricaturons things up a bit by writing this, but
unfortunately we are not far away.

This degeneration of our businesses is not inevitable. Resist the Fast
Science is possible. We can build a Slow Science , giving priority to
values and principles:

At university, it is mainly research that continues to education,
despite the repeated aggressions of all those who dream of
secondarisation part of this institution. It is therefore imperative
to preserve at least 50% of our time to this research activity, which
determines the quality of everything else. In concrete terms, this
implies the rejection of any task that would encroach on the 50%.
Search and publish emphasizing quality require everyone to focus
exclusively on these tasks during a sufficiently long time. To this
end, claim the benefit of regular periods without charge or management
education (one semester of law every 4 years for example).
Let us not focus on quantity in the CV. Foreign universities already
give the example, by limiting to five the number of publications that
may be mentioned a candidate for a position or promotion (Trimble SW,
2010, "quality not quantity Reward", Nature , 467:789). This implies
that, in a collegial and transparent, we give ourselves to methods and
tools so that our records are no longer measured by the number of
publications or papers, but depending on the content thereof.
Nourished by the research, teaching excellence is the mission of the
university: to transmit the knowledge acquired. Must be allowed to
teach faculty members, improving their working conditions (how much
time wasted on solving practical problems and often trivial that fall
outside of their missions?), By reducing administrative tasks and
reducing the time spent "mount models." Those famous "models", in
particular, could be limited to defining the curriculum framework
specific to the discipline in the university in question, without the
need to change this setting every four years (or five), as currently
the case.
In our management tasks, require ample time to study the issues before
us. Now, in the interest of all, working only on content and reject
this ersatz democracy and collegiality of voting on issues that in the
best case, we could only fly. Nothing forces us to submit to the
ideology of emergency gargle with the Department and the "managers".
More generally, it is worth remembering that our life does not stop at
the university and the need to keep some free time for our families,
our friends, our leisure ... for the sake of not nothing.
If you agree with these principles and sign the call text in the
founding of the movement Slow Science. Above all, take your time
before deciding to do or not!

Joël Candau, October 29, 2010 (published July 17, 2011)

>  ———————————————————
>  Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond
>  Professeur émérite de l'université de Nice,
>  Directeur de la revue Alliage
>  54 bd Mantega-Righi, 06100 Nice
>
>

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