Science democratised = expertise decommissioned

Science and expertise have been antithetical forms of knowledge in both the ancient and the modern world, but they appear identical in today’s postmodern world, especially in Science & Technology Studies (STS) literature. The ancient Athenians associated science (epistemé) with the contemplative life afforded to those who lived from inherited wealth. Expertise (techné) was for those lacking property, and hence citizenship. Such people were regularly forced to justify their usefulness to Athenian society. Some foreign merchants, collectively demonised in Plato’s Dialogues as ‘sophists’, appeared so insulting to citizen Socrates, because they dared to alienate aspects of this leisured existence (e.g. the capacity for articulate reasoning) and repackage them as techniques that might be purchased on demand from an expert – that is, a sophist. In effect, the sophists cleverly tried to universalise their own alien status, taking full advantage of the strong analogy that Athenians saw between the governance of the self and the polis. Unfortunately, Plato, the original spin doctor, immortalised Socrates’ laboured and hyperbolic rearguard response to these sly and partially successful attempts at dislodging hereditary privilege..

American ambivalence toward academic freedom

Why are U.S. academics, even after tenure and promotion, so timid in their exercise of academic freedom? Part of the problem is institutional – academics are subject to a long probationary period under tight collegial control – but part of the problem is ideological. A hybrid of seventeenth-century British and nineteenth-century German ideals, U.S. academia – and the nation more generally – remains ambivalent toward the value of academic freedom, ultimately inhibiting an unequivocal endorsement

Fracking and Willetts: two stories to watch in 2013

In our final year in review post, Steve Fuller looks back on 2012. He explains how there are two stories from the end of this year which he will be watching intently in the next

Mastering Trump’s mastermind: Sebastian Gorka and the struggle between Islam and the West

British-born Sebastian Gorka was appointed as Deputy Assistant to the President of the United States by Donald Trump in January and is viewed as one of the key figures behind the President’s national security strategy. Steve Fuller presents an analysis of Gorka’s world-view, writing that his conception of an ideological struggle between Islamic jihadism and the West may ultimately be difficult to square with the views of Trump’s core supporters, who have a sharper focus on territorial integrity and the material security of American citizens

A modest proposal to solve the problem of peer review: Treat evaluation as an in-house publishing function.

Peer review is under constant scrutiny due to its failure to adapt to a more effective model in the digital age. Steve Fuller argues that academic evaluation proceeds much too slowly for the quite simple reason that academics are valued mainly for being productive and not evaluative. It may be the job of publishers to rescue the academic brand – from academia itself — by hiring peer reviewers directly. To ensure quality control in academic knowledge production, peer review may need to be internalised as a regular publishing cost

We have seen the Alt-Right, but what about the Alt-Left?

Much has been written about the rise of the 'Alt-Right' and its role in American and European politics. However, the use of the term 'Alt-Left' remains far more contested. Steve Fuller writes that while the term is often used in a pejorative sense, there is the potential for left-wing actors to reclaim the Alt-Left label as part of a wider reorientation of the politics of the left

Is the fear of metrics symptomatic of a deeper malaise? On fiefdoms and scapegoats of the academic community.

This Monday marks the end of the open consultation for HEFCE’s Independent Review of the Role of Metrics in Research Assessment. Steve Fuller expands on his submission and also responds to other prominent critiques offered. He argues that academics, especially interdisciplinary scholars, should welcome the opportunity to approach the task of citation differently. Whilst many complain of the high citation rates of bad scholarship, Fuller wonders if this is a problem of research metrics or of the inability to define a coherent ideal of progressive scholarship

Transhumanism and the future of capitalism: the next meaning of life

Although there is no single definition of ‘transhumanism’, the term broadly relates to the idea that the human species should radically transform itself as it has the physical environment through the use of advanced technology. Steve Fuller writes on the link between transhumanism and capitalism, and elaborates on what it would mean to be a person in such a world