pamela wrote:

On 20:37 22 Feb 2018, Roger Hayter wrote:

pamela wrote:

On 19:04 22 Feb 2018, Roger Hayter wrote:

Roger Hayter wrote:

pamela wrote:

On 12:54 22 Feb 2018, Tim Streater wrote:

In article , Andrew
wrote:

On 19/02/2018 18:09, Roger Hayter wrote:
Perhaps they're just worth more in pension than you are?
Or, more likely, you are just cowed by the bosses into
accepting considerably less than you deserve in pension.
Why should others copy you because you don't insist on
what you are worth?


-- Roger Hayter

Nobody 'deserves' anything that they have not made any
effort towards.

Public service pensions and closed-shop jobs-for-the-boys
are classic examples.

For years the unions bullied BSC into pay rises that just
exponentially increased the pension black hole. No-one
considered this back in the black years of the 1970's when
12 million person-days were lost to strikes. The actuaries
still thought that men would retire at 65 and be mostly
dead by 73 when now the figure is far higher. Someone has
to pay for all those extra years. Free lunches don't
exist.

And everything I hear about pensions (such as this
bull**** strike by academics over pensions) further
confirms my view that *all* pensions should be *personal*
and that only pension companies should legally be able to
manage them.

If the academics want index-linked pensions (worth £10,000 a
year) and there's no more money then let's end security of
tenure and sack as many as needed to provide pensions for
those who remain.

Of course, harder work and longer hours will be required
from the rmeaining staff to provide the same level of
service.

Those were the days: https://imgur.com/a/NgHeA

The idea of security of tenure for academics was to ensure
that people capable of thinking were in a position to develop
new ideas, about society, literature, science and politics.
This is essential to prevent totalitarianism, but also to
prevent the ossification of society and to allow science to
develop without stultification (or more likely the rapid
overtaking of our science by universities in the far east).
You may be jealous that academics are clever than you, but we
do need them. And we need them to be able to express new ideas
without being sacked by jealous middle managers, or hounded
out by Mary Whitehouse type ladies with hats on management
committees.

P.S. a beautiful case in point occurred recently. Some years
ago the University of Exeter appointed (using a grant from
Prince Charles' foundation) a professor of alternative
medicine. There was really only one credible candidate, a
European (possibly Austrian) who had done considerable
postgraduate research assessing and tabulating the scientific
evidence for alternative medicine. He started his career with
a strong desire to refine and promote effective alternative
medicine. He moved to the West Country and has since devoted
his life to his career and become a valued member of the local
population. However, once he used the opportunity to develop
valid research into alternative medicine he found that every
single study he did, and every single meta-analysis using other
scientifically valid studies (of the few that have been done in
the world) demonstrated that alternative medicines generally,
or at least the various ones he has studied, simply did not
work. Not more than placebo, anyway. The result recently
was that Prince Charles got him sacked, by threatening the
University with loss of patronage if it failed to do this.
Not for being a poor academic (he is probably still the
acknowledged world expert on the *science* of alternative
medicine), but for reaching the "wrong" conclusions as far as
the Prince is concerned.

Prof Ernst didn't lose his tenure but lost funding after falling
out with his patron, Prince Charles. He was not sacked.

If Ernst had found other sources of funds to pay for his
department then they would still be working.

There's nothing remarkable in this.

Firstly, the University should never have accepted funding for a
chair on the basis that the lay donor could interfere in the
academic programme. This is *not* the same as funding a
particular research study, and once anti-scientiific cranks can
choose medical academics at respectable universities we are long
way down the banana republic road.

If the university didn't have money for the department's work in its
coffers then there may not have been any funding available in any
other way that what happened here.

If you offer to fund a chair you should at least fund a working
department, if no major research.





Secondly, the good professor says it was made plain that his life
would be made a misery and, topically, his pension impaired if he
insisted on staying. And that this behaviour had been forced on
the University by a "major donor".

Also topically, is Prof Ernst more committed to his work or to his
pension?

At his age, and a family to support, with no other likely funding
source, what do you think? Especially with an employer who wants to
get rid of him and is therefore likely to be creative with disciplinary
issues. There are no other chairs up for grabs, and he is a bit old to
apply anyway. What choice does he have? Do not forget that his
enemies are immensely rich, and have a lot of patronage.



--

Roger Hayter