The prestige of America’s elite universities is rapidly deflating, as scandals reveal them to be far from disinterested seekers of the truth and shapers of the minds of the meritocratically-selected future leaders. The hard truth is that they are big businesses, as self-interested and narrow-minded as any corporation, but harder to take because of all the pretensions.
The admissions scandals unfolding, with more indictments promised, is but one pillar of elite academic prestige that is getting very shaky. Equally if not more serious is the problem of research fraud, spurred by the availability of gigantic research grants, mostly from the federal government. When phony research is produced, if not caught it can lead to horrendous outcomes, as other researchers use the fake results in their own work. Eventually, bridges could collapse, patients die, or airplanes crash when the “knowledge” is applied in the real world.
That’s why this story from NPR is so important, yet receiving comparatively little attention. Bill Chappell writes:
Duke University is paying the U.S. government $112.5 million to settle accusations that it submitted bogus data to win federal research grants.
Read the full story from American Thinker
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