April 26, 2024

Science as Marketing (Current)

Science as Marketing (Current)

Photo: dpa / Guido Kirchner

Science is the production of the mind. It makes sense what previously seemed unreasonable. Nearly ten years ago, a federal president fell for inaccurate hotel bills, and today you can not only remain head of the party with the “bluff” of your PhD thesis, but you can also confidently apply for an entire federal state government. They say that people want to look into the future now, where it is reasonable to trust that the public will not be able to remember the scandal in two weeks.

As for the function of scientific work in capitalism, it does not matter whether it came legally. Not falling is also eligible. In Germany, hundreds of officials are likely to be involved in fake doctoral theses that were written before the Internet; Their exposure would only be a matter of time and public interest. You will all follow the Berlin case with great interest: will you get away with it? If so, they could also breathe a sigh of relief.

The job of legitimizing science in the coronavirus crisis has already been eroded: Springer has in-house virologists, and their lateral thinkers, all honestly saying what their customers should hear — scientific positions are just one marketing measure among many. And where there was technical consensus, the prime minister’s consensus could be ignored with impunity – there were also “other voices”, such as those of business associations.

What is the value of the message? A higher annual starting salary of €5,000; What’s inside is not that important. Aside from the job of a resume, respect for science could hardly be lower than it is today, including self-esteem. Under the hashtag ichbinhanna, women in particular are currently describing on social media how the entire scientific system relies on brilliant minds dragging themselves from city to city from half-timers, quarters, and eighths for twelve years to a salary that others don’t. One day he will start an internship. Meanwhile, ghost writing agencies jeunesse dorée are writing their semester papers including their master’s thesis.

Universities underwent the Bologna process almost without resistance, car dealers appointed themselves as chairmen, gave lecture halls names of supermarkets and set up the “Finance House” on the Adorno-Platz in Frankfurt. The comment by an American researcher that he knew only one “house of pancakes” from the United States, and that the Germans had an exclusively “Finance House”, did not detract from the reputation. The whole ideology is hidden in absurd Anglicanism: in a pseudo-regional world, German science has subdued business in a way that American universities cannot reconcile with its dignity. In the search for “third-party funding”, Graecists have to figure out if Homer’s research can be combined with neuromarketing, or else the department will unfortunately be closed. At the expense of taxpayer costs, the inflated sciences in the business administration sector constantly create an ideological justification for the abolition of other sciences, which, in turn, believe that they can only be saved by referring to business administration.

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Against this background, what does a fake thesis mean? Is there even a valid thesis in the wrong system?