Robin Hanson

"Hanson takes ideas, and their consequences, seriously, and he thinks a lot of scholars don’t. He abhors self-deception and hypocrisy — which, in his view, aris...e when people aren’t extremely open, honest, and forthcoming. Given this definition, he sees hypocrisy nearly everywhere. A persistent problem with academe, to his mind, is its focus on signaling impressiveness for its own sake. He is critical of the type of articles that top journals tend to look for: "It will have to use difficult methods, more-difficult-to-access data sets, more-difficult-to-access theoretical concepts," he explains. The major criterion is impressiveness, or difficulty, "not actual intellectual contribution or insight." In 1990 he wrote that "academia is still largely a medieval guild, with a few powerful elites, many slavelike apprentices, and members who hold a monopoly on the research patronage of princes and the teaching of their sons."
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Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

Robin Hanson wants to do scholarship differently. Is there a place for him in academe?

chronicle.com