In his book The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next, Lee Smolinmakes the case that theoretical physics research has been in a state of stagnation for more than 20 years, and he places a large portion of the blame on the dominance of string theory in American universities. According to Smolin, one of the reasons for this is tenured professors whose specialty is string theory favour hiring younger professors who are interested in string theory research. There wouldn’t ordinarily be a problem with this except that:
a. string theory is not a single theory but rather a “landscape” of theories (up to 10^500 different theories),
b. string theory does not make predictions that can be readily tested,
c. even when newly uncovered evidence shows that string theory is wrong (ex: the universe’s expansion is accelerating), string theorists don’t discard but rather amend the theory.
To help combat this dominance, Smolin suggests (among other things) that science should adopt democratic rule where dissenting voices can have a turn without fear of punishment. This is in direct contrast to what another physics researcher has to say about science:
Science more or less dispenses with all criteria except number one. Science is a meritocracy, one of the few true meritocracies. What has always been relevant in science is: what is the quality of your work? and, to a lesser extent, what is the volume of your work?
I concur. This is how science should work. Not by democratic voting, but by the merits of one’s work.
However, if Dr. Smolin’s portrait of the state of physics research is true (and if physics is representative of the natural sciences in general), then it is apparent that science is not a meritocracy, but rather an aristocracy, where the rulers (the tenured professors) generally determine the direction of research.
So which is it? Democracy, meritocracy, aristocracy, a combination or two or more, or something else entirely?
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