The clip by seven7lives above is beautiful, eerie, and moving -- truly a gem, obviously inspired by Fritz Lang's masterpiece "Metropolis". Watch it, it is worth it! Then take a look at my interpretation, below.
The clip starts with a woman facing the firing squad.
She is Science. She has been humiliated, tied, and blindfolded -- the worst offense that you can do to an entity whose purpose is to see as far as possible.
Then, we see the girl in the red dress. She is Wisdom. She is the daughter of Science.
And here are the scientists: humiliated, enslaved, mistreated.
They are forced to repeat useless and obsolete work in order to obtain the mythical grants that will allow them to repeat useless and obsolete work. But one of them has seen the light. He will search for truth.
He rebels against the tanks of scientific publishers.
And he is punished for his deed by the masked referees: this is a typical double-blind review
Clearly, the anonymous reviewers are against science, to the point that they line up in a firing squad to shoot Science dead
And Science dies in the arms of Wisdom whom she had begotten.
But, if they can kill Science, they can't kill Wisdom. She takes the red banner of truth from her mother and she bravely faces the masked reviewers.
And Truth flies free, released to the air by Wisdom.
But who is the evil-looking man in the high tower? The one who seems to be masterminding the whole tragedy?
He is the one who causes scientists to suffer, to lose their creative energies in repeating the same useless research over and over, to be at the whim of their evil masters: the funding committees, the publishers, the referees, the powers that be. He is
Note: if you are not a publishing scientist, you may have trouble understanding the meaning of my interpretation, even though I am sure you can enjoy the powerful symbolism of the clip. But, in case you are curious about the ways of modern science, let me just tell you that this post was inspired by a recent scandal in Italy about how scientists are perverting the various indices that are supposed to "grade" their performance (the h-index is one of them). You can read about this on Nature, and on Science. Basically, not only these indices can be perverted, but they tend to stifle innovation, forcing scientists to plan their careers on endlessly repeating the same useless things.
And Truth flies free, released to the air by Wisdom.
But who is the evil-looking man in the high tower? The one who seems to be masterminding the whole tragedy?
He is the one who causes scientists to suffer, to lose their creative energies in repeating the same useless research over and over, to be at the whim of their evil masters: the funding committees, the publishers, the referees, the powers that be. He is
THE H-INDEX
Note: if you are not a publishing scientist, you may have trouble understanding the meaning of my interpretation, even though I am sure you can enjoy the powerful symbolism of the clip. But, in case you are curious about the ways of modern science, let me just tell you that this post was inspired by a recent scandal in Italy about how scientists are perverting the various indices that are supposed to "grade" their performance (the h-index is one of them). You can read about this on Nature, and on Science. Basically, not only these indices can be perverted, but they tend to stifle innovation, forcing scientists to plan their careers on endlessly repeating the same useless things.
