Meta Academics: Thinking Better About Thinking Better

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Meta academics is the analysis of the institutions and practices involved in formal intellectual training, participation, and innovation.

The Crisis of Meta Academics

New ideas are not getting enough circulation ¹ The role of the university and the advanced academic skillset is in a state of flux, both culturally as a stigma and polemically as a credentialing mechanism that signals clout.

As the value of academic prowess depreciates (labeled “over-intellectualization”) and the punch of academic status appreciates (labeled “expertise”), as a culture, we are experiencing a disincentive to become academically competent and a shortage of inspiring examples of those who leverage this skill to do agile, meaningful work in domains with existential significance.

The crisis that we face is therefore not academic, but meta academic. It is concerning the principles of scholarly thinking, publishing, and public discourse. This involves the value of the university as well as the skillset it hosts.

Peer-reviewed journals have become a space of resume-building rather than knowledge-seeking. Scientific journals have segmented down into niche sectors that could not and will not ever be absorbed into the collective awareness. It is with these issues that I am concerned and hope to improve upon both in the genre and subject matter of the content in this site topic.

Footnotes[+]

Footnotes
↑1	Johan S. G. Chu and James A. Evans, “Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science,” PNAS (2021).

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