

Academic Kakistocracy - yarapavan
http://lucatrevisan.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/academic-kakistocracy/

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yardie
This doesn't just apply to academia. You can always see it in the workforce.
And, more visibly, in the primary, secondary schools. Good hackers rarely make
good managers, and good managers get promoted not because they are good at
hacking code.

My mother told me a story about giving a glowing review to her colleague, not
because she was a good worker, but because she wanted her out of her hair. She
wasn't fireable, so the only option was to send her somewhere else.

And most people will first encounter this in school. Where the best teachers
don't always have the best titles. And the worst are always promoted. Teachers
have strong unions so if you can't fire them then you can promote them. Some
of the worst human beings I've ever met were vice-principals. People who
clearly have no business in education at all. But through fortune and
incompetence are given titles and offices away from students.

~~~
yarapavan
This reminds me of the 'Peter Principle" which states that

* In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence

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philk
It's an interesting idea, but I can think of three other possible explanations
for the individuals who rise to the top being the least adept at research:

1) The individuals who rise to the top may be the most socially/politically
able - developing these social/political skills might be time consuming, thus
reducing the amount of time a particular individual has to perform research.

2) Rising to the top might saddle individuals with so many new
responsibilities that they do not have the time to perform quality research.

3) People may resent others in their field who are doing better research and
align against them, not because they have more opportunities elsewhere but
because they resent their ability.

~~~
yummyfajitas
My personal theory (based on working a few years in academia) is this:

4) Good researchers usually don't want to rise to the top.

Think of it this way. What would you rather do? Hacking, or preventing the
university president from interfering with other people hacking while handling
administrative work related to hackers performing their teaching duties?

There are of course exceptions to this rule (I work for one), but they are few
and far between.

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bd
See also previous discussion here on HN about this topic:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=793205>

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bhseo
On a sidenote,"kakistos" means "the worst". hence kakistocracy.

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bhseo
Reminded me of this saying:

"Someone that pretends he is an idiot, is not actually an idiot."

