I previously argued that universities fail at education, partly because academics are so committed to the life of a scholar: they want to learn, not teach (see part I). So perhaps the real contribution universities make to society comes from their research? On the one hand universities do produce a lot of it; on the other hand it is rarely useful to the rest of us. The struggle for real and important knowledge requires – surprise surprise – more than just setting up an academic bureaucracy and giving it money.
A confusion about the nature of research: scholarship or discovery
Not all research is intended to advance humanity’s knowledge, Star Trek style, by making bold voyages of discovery in search of new phenomena and natural laws. An awful lot of it is, and has to be, scholarship: reading and commenting on what has already been said on the subject is a necessary step to saying anything original and relevant.