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Comment by hikingsimulator | Hacker News Reader

The issue is that a freedom is only a freedom for those who can afford it, afford escaping from the consequences of it in the case of freedom of speech. A person of color from the deepest recesses of the Bible belt can go to Harvard, can...

Academic freedom does matter, yes, but Academia isn't an ivory tower of neutrality. It shouldn't be. First because it should not be shielded from the consequences of its output, second because it should help advance mankind -- a political aim in more than a few regards.

Economics for instance has shown in multiple occasions that it is biased, toxic, and lacking diversity, pushing on towards ideology [1]. Academic Freedom does matter, but freedom appears vacuous when it only grants -- quite literally in terms of research -- the same ideas, the same people, the same social groups the whole spotlight.

[1] https://youtu.be/mwojD0iHS4U

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> “deepest recesses”, “advance mankind”, “toxic”

This language is so explicitly ideological itself that it’s hard for me to draw out what position you’re actually taking here. Can you elaborate?

It is not ideological to say that academia should be held responsible for its output, especially in fields that can drive policy (for instance, in economics it is well known that one of the key studies that tipped the scale in favor of austerity was erroneous, but it was not checked because it was in the academic zeitgeist [1]).

I do not think it is ideological either to say that the purpose of research is to help develop people and nations. Whether it comes from hard science or soft science (a contentious categorization).

All in all, I think my point is fairly clear. Neutrality in academia, especially political science, economics, etc. is non-existent and that the developments and recommendations coming out of those departments should never escape a wide scrutiny and criticism. The way the article frames it is that criticism, when it leads to retractation in Cotton's case or that of polsci/humanities, is bad. I profoundly disagree. Calling for freedom of speech in academia, like the article does, does not mean that every one is heard, only that the already entrenched and tenured remains unchallenged.

[1] https://theconversation.com/economists-an-excel-error-and-th...

You are being irrational and ideological. It is unreasonable to hold academics accountable for policy decisions. We should instead demand that our elected leaders not set policy based on generally low-quality academic fields such as economics, at least not until research results have been independently replicated multiple times.

When one of the stated goals of a discipline like Economics is to help drive economic decisions, i.e. policy, it is not an unwarranted expectation that the milieu that led to them be held accountable. Science is not performed in a vacuum.

Science should be performed in a vacuum, that's the whole point. Its applications, on the other hand, are not to be performed in a vacuum.

It's not achievable, and likely never will. Even research in physics or mathematics is embedded in internal department politics and financing issues that influenced what is researched, who does the research, and ultimately who gets the rewards.

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