In a totally predictable move, the Science™ desires ever more funding, despite more-than-pertinent questions about their methods, climate modelling, and personal integrity
I ditto you Martin! And I must say by now I am reassure rather than concerned that there are groups of people willing to come together to keep tabs on these kind of events. Kudos to them all!
From what I’ve encountered of the reasoning in ‘publish or perish’ mills, only publications in major venues are important. The PhD dissertation is not a publication in a major venue, ergo it is not important. The student is asked to prepare it in 2~3 months of spare time (while working on the next publication), typically by mashing together material from their prior publications, regardless of whether their subjects form a coherent research narrative. If the thesis is a poorly structured mess, the student may get a pass based on mutual obligations among professors to graduate one another’s students. The academic job hunt does not look at the contents of the thesis — it looks at publications in major venues. So here again the quality of the thesis is irrelevant.
If the professor here was educated in a similar academic culture, her thesis document may be a copypaste of arguments already presented in papers, so there’d be no point listing it among ‘relevant publications’ in a CV.
One could argue about the educative value of actually taking a PhD thesis defence process seriously, but since that is not a publication in a major venue, the argument is completely irrelevant to how research must be conducted.
Well, you raise several relevant points, all of which are fine.
The main point here being: in these circles, credentialism is running wild, and here a professor (!) of climatology™ holds but a masters-level degree in physics; everything else Dr. Otto has done may or may be relevant, but her qualifications are wanting (except in the sense of her saying the things those who pay her--cue the WEF--require of her).
As this study confirms, glaciers have been retreating and regrowing since time in memoriam. I visited the Rhine glacier in 1964 and guide showed how it had retreated approx 5metres over the last year. The people driving their self fulfilling climatology drivel have no historical or credible scientific base for holding us to ransome.
At this point nothing would surprise me.
I ditto you Martin! And I must say by now I am reassure rather than concerned that there are groups of people willing to come together to keep tabs on these kind of events. Kudos to them all!
From what I’ve encountered of the reasoning in ‘publish or perish’ mills, only publications in major venues are important. The PhD dissertation is not a publication in a major venue, ergo it is not important. The student is asked to prepare it in 2~3 months of spare time (while working on the next publication), typically by mashing together material from their prior publications, regardless of whether their subjects form a coherent research narrative. If the thesis is a poorly structured mess, the student may get a pass based on mutual obligations among professors to graduate one another’s students. The academic job hunt does not look at the contents of the thesis — it looks at publications in major venues. So here again the quality of the thesis is irrelevant.
If the professor here was educated in a similar academic culture, her thesis document may be a copypaste of arguments already presented in papers, so there’d be no point listing it among ‘relevant publications’ in a CV.
One could argue about the educative value of actually taking a PhD thesis defence process seriously, but since that is not a publication in a major venue, the argument is completely irrelevant to how research must be conducted.
Well, you raise several relevant points, all of which are fine.
The main point here being: in these circles, credentialism is running wild, and here a professor (!) of climatology™ holds but a masters-level degree in physics; everything else Dr. Otto has done may or may be relevant, but her qualifications are wanting (except in the sense of her saying the things those who pay her--cue the WEF--require of her).
As this study confirms, glaciers have been retreating and regrowing since time in memoriam. I visited the Rhine glacier in 1964 and guide showed how it had retreated approx 5metres over the last year. The people driving their self fulfilling climatology drivel have no historical or credible scientific base for holding us to ransome.