Dear Martin,
Thanks for your note [1 below]. I will give you the quick, brief, and absolutely concise version of my argument. I begged off once, so I warn you that this is an ill-formed and incomplete argument. If you find it unsatisfactory, so do I. Any serious argument would respond to the seventeen issues I identified in Terry’s post, and would do so with care. So if you see this reply as too short, too sketchy, and therefore too little, I say in advance, “Right you are!”
The reason I disagree with Terry’s interpretation of my note is that he massaged my views with a debatable spin. He changed my comments slightly in a way that shifted my tone. Using such words as “unsullied” added a moralistic tone that my original note did not contain.
This latest note came after I agreed that we also see vices and self-serving behavior among scholars and university-based researchers. After I stated my view in response to Terry’s question [see 2 below], it seems odd to attribute views to me that I do not hold.
While I think he missed a few points, I generally agree with Terry on the problems of universities. Metric-based approaches trouble many systems. But there is a nuance that Terry overlooks in his note. The metrics used to measure university research do not necessarily lead to flawed research. Researchers gain far more citations in Web of Science for great physics and excellent psychology than they get for mediocre physics or sloppy psychology.
More important, the university system still has niches for independent research and blue-sky research. These survive in the university world in ways that would not be possible in industry.
Where I disagree a bit more is on the question of industry research. Much as Bismarck said of laws and sausages — no decent human being wants to know how paid research is done when it is paid for by company executives who want the research to reach specific conclusions.
The amount of flawed research in industry is staggering. And the amount of corrupt research in industry far outweighs the amount of corrupt research in universities, both in terms of flawed research quality and in terms of the adverse consequences to society.
Tobacco? Pharmaceuticals? Sugar consumption? Fast food? Big oil? Military production and procurement? Climate change?
As for industrial research in the design fields that is not corrupt but is flawed, just read Henry Petroski's books.
A great deal of applied industrial research is excellent. But the temptations of corruption are much greater in industry. These temptations rise in proportion to the amount of money involved, and the amount of money that sloshes around industry far outweighs that in the university world. Relatively minor industrial czars earn more than the best-paid university presidents and vice chancellors, and the demands for quarterly results and rising profits influence the demands that top executives place on lesser executives, and so on down the chain to the researchers who work for them.
While it is true that much university research is funded by industry, there remains a difference. A university-based researcher reports to a dean or a center director and upward to a vice chancellor or president who is likely to be a researcher. A researcher will not be told to change the numbers or bury evidence. When this happens in university-based research, adverse consequences follow. There are numerous examples in industry and finance when changing numbers or burying evidence is required of people who wish to keep their jobs.
In this sense, I welcome industry-funded university research – it provides a source of research income where results meet both industry needs and ethical standards. The source of funding is not the issue – the issue is the pressure that can be applied to researchers working directly for corporations.
It may be, of course, that cigarettes really don’t cause cancer. It remains possible that there is no link between sugar-enhanced foods, obesity, and diabetes or man-made activity and climate change.
I don’t believe that, though, and I observe that the research on these issues from universities and university-based research institutes came to one conclusion, while corporate research departments and industry-funded research centers came to another.
To be sure, this is a caricature. I do not oppose industry or industry-funded research. I support and benefit from the research and research findings of some companies and industrial groups. And that make this a quick and relatively shallow response to a complex and serious range of issues. As I wrote earlier, I don’t have the time for a proper reply.
If you and Terry start a new thread in October, and if Terry will repost his poins, I'll respond carefully then.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Home Page http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/people/Professor-Ken-Friedman-ID22.html<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design> Academia Page http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman About Me Page http://about.me/ken_friedman
Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China
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Martin Salisbury wrote:
—snip—
I find myself in the alarming position of agreeing with Terry on this one. I too had understood your position to be more or less as summarised by Terry in his second paragraph.
Without necessarily analysing all (seventeen? I didn't count) of Terry's points, would it not be possible to give a brief sense of why, or whether, you feel, as you seem to be saying, that there are fewer pressures on the integrity of research in the university sector than there are on research in industry? Is it not the case that the lure of "high social status and power ... " is as present in both? And of course much university research is directly or indirectly industry funded
—snip—
Ken Friedman earlier wrote:
[2]
—snip—
This question is not a question about design thinking, but a question of human nature and human behavior. I have therefore changed the header from “Re: More on Design Thinking” to “The ox is on my tongue.” (Line 38 of The Agamemnon by Aeschylus.)
You asked whether my comment on rent-seeking and self-serving behavior described researchers and scholars. Researchers and scholars are as guilty of these vices as consultants and professional practitioners are.
Adam Smith was scathing in his criticism of Oxford University. Smith studied at Balliol College, returning to Scotland with lasting contempt for the English university system.
The problems I describe apply to universities. Even so, I propose a distinction between universities and consulting firms. Researchers and scholars are paid in annual salaries and our salaries are established across the university by pay grade. We do not charge clients by the hour. We are not paid to reach specific conclusions, but rather to examine issues and to reach the conclusions supported by evidence.
Despite this, some professors find ways to increase their salaries. Some do so by consulting. Therefore, they increase their salaries by maximizing their hours. In some of these cases, professors reach the conclusions that meet the needs of those who pay for the research.
Which goes to show you that researchers and scholars, like designers, lawyers, and engineers, are human.
Toward the end of the movie Unforgiven, the Schofield Kid talks about killing a villain named Quick Mike. Even though Quick Mike was a scoundrel and a brute, the Kid feels guilty for shooting him. The Kid says: “Well, I guess he had it coming.” Will Munny, the protagonist of the movie gives this some thought. He replies, “We all have it coming, Kid.”
I suppose you can say this about everyone who takes on human form. Professors or professionals, designers or ditch-diggers, cowboys or consultants, none of us is perfect and we all have it coming.
“In the long run,” as Lord Keynes famously said, “we are all dead.” From Job and Ecclesiastes through the Oresteia and the Theban trilogy, the verdict is the same.
Since researchers and scholars are human, then, yes, this is about researchers and scholars as well as professional practitioners in the many fields of practice.
People would understand a great deal more about the world were they to read Aeschylus and Sophocles along with Herbert Simon and Christopher Alexander. Or at least they’d know a great deal more about themselves and what it is to be human.
—snip—
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