If All Men are Created Equal, Why Do We Need Grades?
I just finished a fascinating book, The Recovery of the West, by polymath Englishman Michael Roberts. Roberts became famous as a poet, but was trained as a scientist and spent…
Articles by John Staddon
Why Do American Universities Lead the World in Scientific Research?
Miguel Urquiola is professor and chair of the department of economics at Columbia University. His special field is education and his book Markets, Minds, and Money: Why America Leads the…
The Mess That Is Science Publishing
Researchers have been grumbling about the state of scientific publishing for years. Now, rumor has it that the Trump administration (yes, those science-haters!) may be trying to fix at least…
The Mess of Federal Funds Is Changing the University
The modern American university has changed almost beyond recognition from the form it had even 100 years ago. It is larger, more “diverse,” more of a business, and more industrialized…
Administrative Bloat: Where Does It Come From and What Is It Doing?
Philip Hamburger recently published a piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing that Congress should control administrative bloat by limiting student loan funds given to colleges with too many administrators.…
Did the Hoaxers Do Anything Wrong?
One of the three “Sokal Squared” academic hoaxers, Peter Boghossian of Portland State University, has been accused of violating his university’s research policies. Boghossian is the only one of the…
The Tangled Web of Scientific Publishing
Science Publishing Is Incoherent, Expensive, and Slow Communication is essential to science. The aim of scientific publication is to convey new findings as quickly as possible to as many interested…
The New Racism, Part II: The Sociologist’s Toolkit: Justifying Racism Through Language
Editor’s note: Part I of The New Racism can be read here. The best way to grasp how sociology has managed to make color-blind racism (CBR) seem believable is to…
The New Racism, Part I: How ‘Race and Ethnic Studies’ Made Color Blindness a Bad Thing
Like most Americans, I have always assumed that color blindness is our ideal. Not any more: color blindness is now become the new racism. So much for a 70-year struggle…
Diversity and Inclusion of Identity Groups Often Means Uniformity and Exclusion of Ideas
“‘Diversity and inclusion’ is the moral benchmark of our time… Every corporation, college, and government agency, along with a growing number of bowling leagues and bait-and-tackle shops, has an Office…