TS Lura wrote:
I feel it's game over, at this point. But maybe you guys have some suggestion about good arguments that might persuade my professor?
here's a quick little seminar on professors and academia. it is very advanced and you may not understand it at first:
- professors have a thing called 'tenure', meaning after a number of years working at an institution they have job security i.e. cannot be fired unless they fuckup massively. this is required to keep talented professors in the profession and allows them not to worry about e.g. having sporadic work product and being fired.
- tenure is a double-edged concept in an educational setting because it is a hedging mechanism. it will retain those brilliant people who may have otherwise chosen another career path but it will also retain those people who were just bright enough to get their tenure. as with any boundary or line one can toe in life, many professors do just enough to get their tenure and not much more.
- it is common for there to be a high degree of toadyism amongst academics. many people succeed by allying themselves with other people of reputation and are weak on their own deliverables. this is borne out in the content of their papers, their coauthors and who chooses to cite their papers.
- some professors are quite talented when younger and then decay substantially when older, it depends heavily on the department. a person may have been brilliant once and it is simply not the case any longer, they have 'lost it'.
conclusion: it is doubtful you can make this professor understand the relevance of BSD, so don't waste your time. many professors live in their own world and care little for what others have to say because of ego, tenure and toadyism. this person sounds like they're an idiot and that will likely be clear if you check the papers they have authored. if they are highly regarded, perhaps they are a talented toady or did great work when they were younger. don't focus so much on what the professor thinks and think for yourself.
