University scientists profit incentives and grievance studies governance
around here: https://overcast.fm/+TA8AkGeFU/1:07:00
Why grievances studies disciplines are more represented in governance roles at Universities: It was a long story, but essentially: The “actual scientists” who are doing the theorizing as well as experimentation are kept (by the university) bringing in grant-money-making on big experiments (which make the most money). One “reward” for bringing in lots of money is the institution requires you to do slightly less Governance and other meta tasks. This means that the university gets the other, less “lucrative” departments to do those tasks. So, you end up with people “who don’t know how to do science and don’t respect science” (the X Studies departments) doing all the governance work and thus in some cases steering the ship.
Related: scientists are incentivized to bring in the most money. Large experiments get bigger grants (and schools take about 50%-80% off the top). Theoreticians can often help forego large experiments by doing good theorizing (“we probably don’t need to look for Effect X because it seems to be impossible for it to come out of System Y”), but this is a lost revenue opportunity for the university. It would be better for the experimentalists to have “inefficient thought”, rather than “efficient thought” increasing-the-inefficiencies-of-a-system-is-often-a-way-to-keep-it-profitable