alt Hacker News> This is actually what ruined my respect for Academia.
Spoken like someone who never went through grad school at a competitive R1 program
It was already a grueling 60-80 hour grind every week with frequent all nighters, high-pressure deadlines, absolute minimal pay, thankless duties, and plenty of politics. It's about the same for professors too.
We already paid our dues by helping peer review (for free) a half dozen papers for each one we submitted. Why should we be expected to review random papers on arxiv too...?
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>Why should we be expected to review random papers on arxiv too...?
The GP is not saying to review each paper you read or cite. They're complaining that a colleague accepted a claim after just reading the title and where the paper was published. Between that and doing a full review there's surely a world of options.
The problem is not that he was not willing to review it. It was that he was willing to conclude it was true. If he had said "that is interesting" or "that is plausible" or whatever, that is fine. It is concluding it is true that is the problem.
I don’t think folks in academia have come to terms with how much the above attitude has completely and nearly entirely undermined the credibility of the entire scientific and academic community in the eyes of the general public.
You don’t need a degree to understand how much utter junk science is being published by those who think they are superior to you. Just read a few actual papers end to end and look at the data vs conclusions and it becomes totally obvious very rapidly that you cannot “trust the science” since it’s rarely actual science being done any longer.
The academic community has utterly failed at understanding they needed to cull this behavior early and mercilessly. They did not, and it will be generations at best to rebuild the trust they once had. If they ever figure out they need to.
Things are going to get much worse before they get better. You can’t take any published paper at face value any longer without going direct to primary sources and bouncing it off an expert in the space you still trust to give you the actual truth.
>It was already a grueling 60-80 hour grind every week with frequent all nighters, high-pressure deadlines, absolute minimal pay, thankless duties, and plenty of politics.
You know what else works really hard? A washing machine. Hard work alone doesnt create value. I could give you a spoon and tell you to dig a hole, or I can teach you how to use a Digger.
I went to an R1 university. Most students did not have a 60-80 hour grind. If they did, it was because of an overbearing advisor. Years later, those students are not ahead of those who had a more relaxed advisor.
And chances are: Those overbearing advisors are very invested in the current system.