Gardner thoughtfully and persuasively responded to my earlier comment on his rejoinder to my diagnosis of reasons behind faculty aversion to risk taking. This is a further comment, which I’m posting here because I’m not sure how to include a link in a comment.
As I was reading Richard Morin’s Unconventional Wisdom column in the Washington Post today, or more precisely the bit titled, “Who Would Have Thought?” I was reminded of the truth in Gardner’s statement:
What if the problem is … [that as academics we fail to make clear] that the work we … are doing is part of something much larger?
Morin reports on three research studies:
1. “Subjective Quality of Life of Young Europeans. Feeling Happy but Who Knows Why?”
2. “Gender-Based Judgments of Traffic Violations: The Moderating Influence of Car Type.”
3. “Distancing and Solidarity as Resistance to Sexual Objectification in a Nude Dancing Bar.”
I’m not questioning the validity of the work in these studies, but given Gardner’s critique, is it any wonder that non-academics question the research that we do?
