The differences between tinkering and research (2016)
Thank you OP for your very insightful blog post. You have been better than any other academic at articulating exactly what happens when I (or one of my colleagues) interact with the academic world and you made me realize that the academic world has a set of values that might be good but which I should not even attempt to incorporate in my own professional life.<p>I have come to my personal conclusion that there is a difference between 'science' and 'the academic world' in much the same way as there is a difference between 'religion' and 'the church'. One can be very religious without going to the church and doing all the rites that are required by the church. In much the same way, a 'tinkerer' (or 'heathen') can be scientific without being academic. I believe that wiki summarizes it quite well for me: "Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe". There is no statement about giving proper credit (vanity) or not being allowed to reinvent the wheel without first making damn sure that you are indeed reinventing.<p>I want to solve real world problems and the way I want to do that is in a structural and repeatable approach. Science helps me doing this. Of course I'm not living in a vacuum, so I will look up as much as I can about the subject at hand as is reasonable within the available amount of time. Interestingly enough, I almost never end up with a research paper, but almost always with blog posts, books, tutorials et cetera. Products don't sell themselves and neither do research papers apparently. I think there is something seriously wrong if that is not perceived as a crisis in the academic world.