Pushing myself to problem solve last couple of days gave me a not surprising answer that when it came to money making matters should focus on making proper business connections. Which am sure is correct. And defining the problem is key to getting a good answer.
With other areas realized that maybe had not focused on properly defining the problem.
Like imagine you are in a bank, to make a deposit, and you see the vault door is open, and some people calmly walk into the bank, into the vault, and back out with bags of cash. They are clearly just ordinary looking people hopping into their cars after they leave and there is a steady stream as you watch. You look at teller aghast and demand to know what's going on. The teller calmly looks at you, says nothing is happening and that did NOT happen.
You worriedly leave the bank, and head for nearest police station, but simply when you enter the police station, is the SAME teller smiling at you, asking to be of service...and yeah, sounds like a nightmare, right?
That is an analogy to the academic world.
Academics in a field of study both are to be the dedicated experts in that area, and the policing authority usually for problems within that area of study. Academics primarily police themselves in their area of expertise. Is an old system that dates back to medieval periods.
Yes there are ways academic fraud can bring in other policing authority. And sometimes like at a university the administration supposedly has some. But especially with tenured faculty, where tenure is something from ancient times, reality can be is functionally rarely if ever used as to the academic field of study.
Academics would probably roar in fury if say, a college administrator dared question them on procedures for checking validity of their research. They check each other. Yeah is an old system dating back to medieval periods.
Yet I found a problem where mathematicians can create a fake paper that is correct by their own mathematical rules, so you need to fix the rules, right?
Paper instead gets yanked by chief editor claiming withdrawn, and journal shuts down after one more issue. European Mathematical Information Service, which is an agency learned archives mathematical journals, puts paper back up thankfully in its own separate file, where is to this day, where have talked this story and over a decade goes by with me wondering what can be done.
The mathematicians still as far as I know can create fake math papers with this problem that look correct. But they are also the policing authority in this area.
Gave a functional definition that authority relative to one entity is when some other entity has information needed.
Like mathematicians are expected to be authorities on mathematics. And they have information needed by others in their field of study on which that authority rests. We can often think of authority as represented by the position itself, while my point is to focus on the knowledge needed for that position.
Like a person can be a police officer and wear the uniform but what if slept through all classes in police academy then could fumble with actually performing duties of a police officer.
Well there that explains it. With academics and a problem where needed to go to the authorities with mathematicians, was right back with mathematicians which I did not see as a huge problem--over a decade ago.
But just accepted the system that was there. And what else could I do really?
Also explains why can't just let it go. We're talking about a serious societal problem, like that bank robbing analogy above. To let it go, have to give up on society in the broad. And imagine trying to build your life in some other area, knowing such a huge flaw existed in such a prestigious and important one?
Where also can be scary. YOU know the problem exists. THEY know you know.
One powerful concept that is helping me out recently: yes, you can become witness to something and have a social duty, and it can be difficult, but worth fighting for what you believe.
Well that defines the problem space better I think. But then, what is the solution?
James Harris
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