Isn't this almost identical to the general admissions process, too?
It seems strange to me that we built institutions on the idea of filtering in/out applicants based on relatively arbitrary criteria, and then express shock/surprise when the reward systems inside that institution are.. basically the same?
There are parallels everywhere, e.g. scientists feeling they must get positive 'groundbreaking discovery!' news reporting about their publications, not just actually doing impactful work, in the same way good grades aren't enough and you need some other impactful story to tell in order to be accepted to many schools.
All of it can be traced back to money, money, money.
> It seems strange to me that we built institutions on the idea of filtering in/out applicants based on relatively arbitrary criteria, and then express shock/surprise when the reward systems inside that institution are.. basically the same?
I think it is impossible to use anything other than noisy signals in many of these processes. I'm not bothered by the noise. But what I am bothered by is pretending the noise doesn't exist or trying to convince people it is a feature and not a bug. Why not just admit the process is noisy and that we're just doing our best? These processes may still be frustrating, but they will be less so and it leaves the door open to fixing issues if they are actually fixable.
With the way we publish science, I find it very odd. We are doing essentially the same thing we have done for centuries with only a few minor tweaks. But unlike the past we don't have many of the same constraints; such as, printing, lack of color, distribution/storage, communication (which is arguably the main purpose of papers), video, and so on. Why are we stuck in the 18th century with a sprinkling of 21st century (plots/graphics and arxiv)? We can track data, reproduction efforts, failures, challenges, and all that stuff. Is not the point of science the pursuit of knowledge? If so, it seems like we're being pretty inefficient. I think there's just something funny about how we publish papers on things like computer graphics and video but constrain our communication methods to a piece of paper.
It seems strange to me that we built institutions on the idea of filtering in/out applicants based on relatively arbitrary criteria, and then express shock/surprise when the reward systems inside that institution are.. basically the same?
There are parallels everywhere, e.g. scientists feeling they must get positive 'groundbreaking discovery!' news reporting about their publications, not just actually doing impactful work, in the same way good grades aren't enough and you need some other impactful story to tell in order to be accepted to many schools.
All of it can be traced back to money, money, money.