[Todos] Fwd: The corruption series (16)

[fabio vicentini]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: fabio vicentini <fmvicent en gmail.com>
Date: Wed, May 29, 2013 at 6:16 AM
Subject: The corruption series (16)
To: "presidencia en conicet.gov.ar" <presidencia en conicet.gov.ar>,
FulbrightNEXUS en iie.org, info en fundacionsadosky.org.ar, info en mincyt.gob.ar,
prensa en mincyt.gov.ar




Canto sedicesimo: Throwing a bottle in the ocean

 Siendo evidente que ningun profesor decente de la FCEN se atreverá a hacer
un  comentario sobre las denuncias de la corrupcion de Exactas por miedo a
que la mafia lo convierta en cadaver académico estoy enviando un mensaje a
una lista de aprox 80 colegas de mi especialidad y a algunos editores de
revistas de Operations Research.

------------------------

Buenos Aires, May 29 , 2013

 To OR colleagues

Subject: Publish-or-Perish

 Dear Madam/Sir:

 "Camelo" is an Argentine slang term difficult to translate. It is an
umbrella word covering different meanings of deception like pretense, fake,
and bullshit. "Camelero" means a bullshit artist.

 In 1995 I reentered my alma mater as a professor, and found that
"professor" did not mean a teacher anymore, now he had a new enhanced
name:  docente-investigador (teacher-researcher). This  stresses the fact
that he endeavours himself to discover  profound truths about the universe
which is more important than the menial task of teaching. Let me emphasize
the point, the plain teacher does not belong to my school, his place is in
a lower echelon institution named "tertiary". In my school the
teacher-researcher actually means that he writes papers to peer-reviewed
journals.

 I am an Operations Research practitioner, working right now in a research
project on the paper-making operations at FCEN/UBA the most prestigious
School of Sciences in Argentina. Let me explain to you what is the subject
of my inquiry.

 When I was a student circa 1960 my instructor was a teacher who might
write a book if he pleased. Also he will publish a paper if he had a
novelty to communicate to his fellow academics, but nowadays the
teacher-researcher is under the coercion of writing papers lest he losses
his job, and it is crystal clear, without much pondering, that he is
publishing *bullshit*.

Now, here is my open question: When did our instructor changed into a *
camelero*? When did he transmute from teacher to bullshitter?  Was it a
gradual change or a discontinuity jump? What caused this reversal from
Jekyll to Hyde?

 These questions struck me when a colleague of mine noticed an exponential
growth of papers just about the time when we suffered Carlos Menem’s
administration the most corrupt we ever had in Argentina (now we are having
a better one). Carlos exhibited an anxious desire to fulfill all the
directions posed to him by his master: the USA.

 I think I could display the phenomenon by plotting the number of papers as
a function of time in a S-shaped curve having an inflexion point in the
nineties when the World Bank bureaucrats dreamed up a plan for higher
education in Latin America and the Caribbean. I wonder whether a similar
curve can be drawn in your home country.

 I will appreciate your comments. Even a simple yes/no response to the
query: *Are you publishing rubbish because of  fear of losing your job?*  I
cannot go around asking that to my own colleagues. They are compromised to
our corrupt system, omertà keeps their mouths shut, they know they are
involved in sham research, but they cannot question the system for Big
Brother may turn the rebelious into an academic cadaver.

 Sincerely,

 Fabio Vicentini, PhD

OR consultant
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