March 07, 2006

Perhaps we could do with fewer academicians in our universities

Sir, When so many vital public and global issues scream out for creative solutions it is sad to see how much of the debate has to concentrate on minor irrelevancies just because on these there is some data availability, so that the PhDs can use their methodologies and run their truth-finding regressions. I bring this up since in the discussions about academicians that Lucy Kellaway’s article let out of the sack, February 27, there might also be room to put forward the need for the world of some Universities without academicians, or at least without PhDs. I do not object to scientific discipline in thinking, but neither do I feel that we could afford that all thinking has to be scientifically disciplined, in its current, perhaps quite cozy, at least for the researchers themselves, sort of limiting way.

Sent to FT, March 7, 2006