Job offered informally confirmed.
H O W E V E R
The UK austerity turns out to be a kind of protectionism. More restrictions on immigration of non-EU citizens means it becomes much more difficult to get a work visa.
The HR department is not going to give me a formal offer until completion of my PhD degree. It seems the CEO does not want to approve my appointment. And even they approve, there is no guarantee since all ultimately depend on the UK border agency. They may doubt that the salary offered is too low, the job ad was posted last August and should be re-advertised to make no British or EU citizen can get it, or I may fail the exam.
I try to speed up the writing up. But at the same time, I am looking for other jobs - especially non-UK jobs.
I am good enough to get a permanent contract equivalent to lecturership right after PhD. Good reference letters, good network, eight first/sole-authored ISI journal publications (comparing to the average 2-3), highly relevant expertise. So what?
After all, passport is the final exam - Do you have a British/EU passport?
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Some thoughts about science
my response to a thread in discussion.com:
1)
My epiphany came when I realized that the neoclassical economists manipulate various kind of data trying to fit everything under a math model even this does not make sense or is not appropriate. Then I found that SOME experimental and behavioural economists have joined these economists in manipulating people's value expressions and in effect data and theories under the banner of rationalization. Technical expertise clearly provides a better tool for manipulation of science than what philosophers and ethicists could offer. I can show you tonnes of scientific research papers supporting this enough for you to read for more than a year.
Not long ago I have a sole-authored journal paper accepted by an ISI journal concerning exactly about this issue. I attack some behavioural economists who employ decision theories to support public participation initiatives. They work for a private consultancy firm receiving money from governments and companies and therefore have vested interest.
Knowledge and science are a matter of power. Religions used to be the major manipulating force, but when science took over them, science can become that force, especially when combined with commercial interest (e.g. mining companies & geologists). As a voter, what would you think if decision scientists or economists attempt to 'educate' your preference toward a what they called a 'rational' mode? Such UNCHECKED application of science supported by math that most people cannot understand is what I condemn.
All I said here mainly apply to public policy especially environmental policy and values research. And don't take me as a sociologist or philosopher. I am a heterodox political economist although I don't want to be an 'economist'.
2)
That's just you and many others like you. And I believe most scientists are honest. The reality is many are tempted to do research in that way as their job prospect / income is closely linked to the ability of their employer or sponsor to fool the public. When you become a key part of an organization whose survival depends on some form of manipulation, you are expected to contribute to it in one way or another. And don't forget some of these organizations are in fact led by scientists themselves. Same for economists, who are obsessed to the identity of 'scientists'. The World Bank is home to many academic economists. They have an agenda to expand liberal-capitalism across the less developed world and this is supported by vested interest. This is far from neutral once your appointment is meant to contribute to that agenda. (things may be less complicated in universities)
One of my supervisors has sufferred from an attempted manipulation. He as an economist had a journal article accepted criticizing the government's emission trading policy in favour of carbon tax. The scientific organization he worked for is a national research agency. It is part of the government in favour of emission trading, and is headed by an ex-executive of a big mining company (mining industry has huge vested interest in the policy). They threatened to ban the article for a bullshit reason: government scientists are not expected to make comment on policy (so what's the point to hire the political economist?). They want to make their organization and employees like a group of 'neutral' scientists. Precisely by banning the paper from publication, they are not neutral anymore. So the logic is, you work for the government and the organization being funded by the resource industry, you are not expected do anything not in their interest. Or, you resign, and he did.
It's hard to remain neutral when those who pay you salary have every incentive to do the opposite. I am not sure people are neutral when they consciously know their guns under production are going to be used by someone else for killing people (what else can guns be used for!?).
3)
This is a matter of power. The Nobel econ prize does have values behind and is defintely not neutral. When did Friedman and Hayek got the prize? When did Cold war take place? The western world controls most of the world's power and resources. They have the ability to define what good science is.
No less true in natural science. A few climate scientists were too gagged by the same organization my super used to work for (finally one or two resigned). So what climat science is? the one not clearly against the organization's interest.
Scientists and economists work in their sponsor's interest far more often than in public interest (less in universites, more in governments and private sector). The lay people don't pay for research directy. Powerful organizations can and do.
4)
[one guy said: there is also a distinction between using research to JUSTIFY a position, versus applying research just for selfish gains.] I replied: Such a distinction may exist technically. The paradox is: who is going to draw the line? You may say the scientists themselves CAN. So the scientists who could potentially make selfish gains from research are at the same time the ones to judge whether or not they could separate the two. They have an incentive to justify the distinction and deny of themselves engaging in the second one. There is then a good reason to hold suspicion of the arguments they attempt to make.
Ulrich Beck's seminal monograph 'Risk Society' has made a point: science since the 2nd half of 20th Century has been given a different set of problems to solve. That is, those that are in part created by scientific advance itself, such as risks from GM food, nuclear, ozone depletion, global warming. The modernization created by science is reflexive: science is both the cause of the problems and source of solutions to these problems. The usual internal scrutiny process is then no longer sufficient, as the scientific communities who are charged to provide solutions have every incentive to deny of their contribution to the problems they are asked to solve (or if they couldn't, deny or shift responsibility). There is potential conflict of interest. Scrutiny from non-scientific communities then becomes more reasonable than ever. (unlike Charles Darwin against the Church, he didn't create the latter)
1)
My epiphany came when I realized that the neoclassical economists manipulate various kind of data trying to fit everything under a math model even this does not make sense or is not appropriate. Then I found that SOME experimental and behavioural economists have joined these economists in manipulating people's value expressions and in effect data and theories under the banner of rationalization. Technical expertise clearly provides a better tool for manipulation of science than what philosophers and ethicists could offer. I can show you tonnes of scientific research papers supporting this enough for you to read for more than a year.
Not long ago I have a sole-authored journal paper accepted by an ISI journal concerning exactly about this issue. I attack some behavioural economists who employ decision theories to support public participation initiatives. They work for a private consultancy firm receiving money from governments and companies and therefore have vested interest.
Knowledge and science are a matter of power. Religions used to be the major manipulating force, but when science took over them, science can become that force, especially when combined with commercial interest (e.g. mining companies & geologists). As a voter, what would you think if decision scientists or economists attempt to 'educate' your preference toward a what they called a 'rational' mode? Such UNCHECKED application of science supported by math that most people cannot understand is what I condemn.
All I said here mainly apply to public policy especially environmental policy and values research. And don't take me as a sociologist or philosopher. I am a heterodox political economist although I don't want to be an 'economist'.
2)
That's just you and many others like you. And I believe most scientists are honest. The reality is many are tempted to do research in that way as their job prospect / income is closely linked to the ability of their employer or sponsor to fool the public. When you become a key part of an organization whose survival depends on some form of manipulation, you are expected to contribute to it in one way or another. And don't forget some of these organizations are in fact led by scientists themselves. Same for economists, who are obsessed to the identity of 'scientists'. The World Bank is home to many academic economists. They have an agenda to expand liberal-capitalism across the less developed world and this is supported by vested interest. This is far from neutral once your appointment is meant to contribute to that agenda. (things may be less complicated in universities)
One of my supervisors has sufferred from an attempted manipulation. He as an economist had a journal article accepted criticizing the government's emission trading policy in favour of carbon tax. The scientific organization he worked for is a national research agency. It is part of the government in favour of emission trading, and is headed by an ex-executive of a big mining company (mining industry has huge vested interest in the policy). They threatened to ban the article for a bullshit reason: government scientists are not expected to make comment on policy (so what's the point to hire the political economist?). They want to make their organization and employees like a group of 'neutral' scientists. Precisely by banning the paper from publication, they are not neutral anymore. So the logic is, you work for the government and the organization being funded by the resource industry, you are not expected do anything not in their interest. Or, you resign, and he did.
It's hard to remain neutral when those who pay you salary have every incentive to do the opposite. I am not sure people are neutral when they consciously know their guns under production are going to be used by someone else for killing people (what else can guns be used for!?).
3)
This is a matter of power. The Nobel econ prize does have values behind and is defintely not neutral. When did Friedman and Hayek got the prize? When did Cold war take place? The western world controls most of the world's power and resources. They have the ability to define what good science is.
No less true in natural science. A few climate scientists were too gagged by the same organization my super used to work for (finally one or two resigned). So what climat science is? the one not clearly against the organization's interest.
Scientists and economists work in their sponsor's interest far more often than in public interest (less in universites, more in governments and private sector). The lay people don't pay for research directy. Powerful organizations can and do.
4)
[one guy said: there is also a distinction between using research to JUSTIFY a position, versus applying research just for selfish gains.] I replied: Such a distinction may exist technically. The paradox is: who is going to draw the line? You may say the scientists themselves CAN. So the scientists who could potentially make selfish gains from research are at the same time the ones to judge whether or not they could separate the two. They have an incentive to justify the distinction and deny of themselves engaging in the second one. There is then a good reason to hold suspicion of the arguments they attempt to make.
Ulrich Beck's seminal monograph 'Risk Society' has made a point: science since the 2nd half of 20th Century has been given a different set of problems to solve. That is, those that are in part created by scientific advance itself, such as risks from GM food, nuclear, ozone depletion, global warming. The modernization created by science is reflexive: science is both the cause of the problems and source of solutions to these problems. The usual internal scrutiny process is then no longer sufficient, as the scientific communities who are charged to provide solutions have every incentive to deny of their contribution to the problems they are asked to solve (or if they couldn't, deny or shift responsibility). There is potential conflict of interest. Scrutiny from non-scientific communities then becomes more reasonable than ever. (unlike Charles Darwin against the Church, he didn't create the latter)
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