Academics in Clown Suits
Imagine the reception an academic would get if he gave a talk in a clown suit. Or if he sang instead of just speaking his words. Or if his papers were written on colored paper, or in crayon. No matter how well his work otherwise corresponded to academic norms, it would be hard to get other academics to take him seriously. I remember when I first started writing on economics, I was scolded for formatting my papers in a two-column, single-spaced format. While that format was common in computer science, to be taken seriously in economics a paper must be formatted as single-column, double-spaced.
Academics are well aware that these norms are relatively arbitrary, but usually assume that similar norms do not influence the content of their talks or papers. But I strongly suspect that not only are some presentation formats considered too silly to be taken seriously, the same also applies to many topics. That is, I suspect academics refuse to consider certain topics and theses because such things just seem silly. Academics assume that silly-seeming topics must be unworthy of study, but this conclusion may not really be based on much analysis; it could be the same immediate unthinking reaction they would have to a prof in a clown suit.
I’m thinking of writing an oped on this subject, and so want to collect a list of candidate topics that seem unfairly ignored because they just seem silly. Can you suggest topics for this list, and reasons why they should be considered more seriously?
"Can you suggest topics for this list, and reasons why they should be considered more seriously?"
Sorry to be so late, but I'd like to nominate self-directed education, or unschooling. As long as our institutions of social science are bound up with our schools, it's probably going to be difficult to get good science about alternatives to schooling.
Or even: can we manufacture new drugs, that have heightened psychedelic effects, while minimizing harmful side effects? The psychedelic effects ARE harmful side effects. The price is acceptance of what you're seeking to purchase.
If you change the course of a river, the new ground it flows across begins to erode. You cannot cause the brain to malfunction without causing it harm, if only because the wiring of the brain is part of a feedback mechanism. Alter its functioning and you alter its structure. Trip on LSD, cause the activity of one subsystem to spill into another, and you've sensitized the connections between them, potentiated a new set of relationships. Divert the river and you carve a new course.