Starting this week, fortune tellers in Warren, Mich., must be fingerprinted and pay an annual fee of $150 – plus $10 for a police background check – to practice their craft. The new rules are among America’s strictest on palmists, fortune readers and other psychics, part of a growing push to regulate a business that has never been taken, or overseen, very seriously. But officials in Warren, a town of 138,000 near Detroit, say it’s time to weed out tricksters. “We had no mechanism of enforcement to protect people against unsavory characters,” Warren city-council member Keith Sadowski says. “We want to be sure there is some recourse in case we do get somebody who is not legitimate.”
‘In case we do get somebody who is not legitimate…’ That cracked me up!
But what really cracks me up is that the much adored system of accreditation in higher education works in exactly the same way- with the same putative goal! Fees are paid by those willing and they are granted ‘recognition’ (which evidently can only be achieved by paying the appointed fee). And those not paying the fee are somehow or other to be deemed less legitimate. To ‘protect’ the public! Ha!
Someone will have to show me how the accreditation of psychics is any different than the accreditation of academic programs. In fact, I would happily wager that there are as many inept accredited academics as there are inept accredited psychics.
NB- the woodcut above depicts accredited gypsies telling fortunes… or is it really a depiction of the visit of an accrediting committee at Harvard? Is there a difference?
Pingback: More Discussion over Accreditation « The Musings of Thomas Verenna
A recent article by Thomas Verenna broached the subject of peer review in the field of NT studies. Here are some of my thoughts.
First off, I have been arguing for a long time to roll religion departments and/or theology departments into history departments. I think that religion departments evolved from old time theology departments, but more importantly they evolved from a world view that accepted much of church dogma. Only in the 1800s it seems did really serious work in the science of NT studies seem to get underway. But today, religion departments house two kinds of people. those that are doing historical research on the history of Christianity, and those that wish to gain a veneer of academic respectability, but are really promoting supernaturalism in the guise of academics. What I mean by that is that many in the NT field are really doing the work of priests or ministers trying to promote supernaturalism. University scholarship should not be about this. And unfortunately since so many in the field are really promoting supernaturalism, the actual history gets the short end of the stick.
It would seem to me that if NT history was in the history department, when a paper is written you would not just have NT people reviewing it, but you would have others that major in say the French revolution, American constitutional history, and other history fields look for obvious flaws in the historical methodology and assumptions that would help to catch much of the lazy peer reviewing that has crept into the NT history field.
With regards to peer review and journals in general.
I think that existing journals will attempt to hang on, but I think their days are numbered. Historically journals accumulated, organized, and then distributed the writings of those in the field. In the past this was a paper intensive, and publishing intensive task. Today, all of that can be done away with. You, me, and Peter can all have blogs which are really simply our notebooks of writings. If I want to share any particular writing of mine I simply submit the URL to any blog aggregator. Let’s be clear, the term “blog” is a very bad term. A blog (web log) is simply a collection of web pages. Generally shown from newest to oldest with teasers and methods for navigating between pages. In reality the better general term is “website”. The NY Times is a blog. Often people talk about “those crazy bloggers” or they talk about “blogs” as if they are fringe. In reality, a blog or a web site is only as credible as the person that writes or edits it. But, the website or blog allows any scholar or laymen to write an essay, and have it able to be read by anyone, at zero cost.
So, in the future each scholar or laymen will have a web site. They may have sections for notes, and sections for formal journal articles, all different kinds of sections on their websites.
But the Journal industry will change. If a scholar wants to submit a theory they will simply provide the Journal with the URL of the particular page on their web site they wish to submit. The function of journals will simply gather and then provide a list of URLs so that others can read those essays.
A mechanism like the old BBS or Forum system will be developed too. So that people can comment, or peer review these submitted articles, and even have threaded conversations on the article.
They key will be identification. When a person wants to submit or comment in the forums, their profile will be attached. So yo can see that this article was submitted by “Dr. X”, “that got his degree in X1” “at university X2” and currently teaches the following courses at the following university”.
There may be journals that allow submissions only by people with masters degrees, or only doctorates, or some that allow laymen to submit. But all the articles, and the comments/peer review will have the profile attached so you can see the credentials of the essay writer and the commenter.
Now, as I understand it historically peer review occurred BEFORE publication. And in reality it occurred because paper space in journals was limited, and it was a way to get a sanity check before the cost of publishing and mailing was undertaken. In the future peer review will happen AFTER submission, since collection and distribution is now virtually free. This will prevent ideas from being screened out due to bias.
Let’s say you have an online journal that is only available for submission by people with doctorates in the field. Anyone who’s profile shows they have a doctorate will be able to submit an article. It will instantly be available to all to read, even the general public. Then the essay will begin to be commented on. And each commenter whether simply a public person or another doctor in the field will be able to comment, point out flaws, etc…
New ideas that stand up to the post publication critiques will rise toward acceptance in the field. Those in which obvious flaws are pointed out will die. It will be the concept of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”. A market place of ideas, being sorted through by a large market place with the cream rising, and the crap being dropped.
Currently journals really preclude the public by their access and cost. Many journals are ridiculously priced to read. This will all go away because places like wordpress and blogspot have shown that virtually anyone can be published and read. There is virtually no distribution cost except that of the internet infrastructure.
There will be an opportunity for some to create journals that have better reputations than others. But the industry will have a great deal more input than it does now.
Let me give an example. There is a professor of Classics named Earl Doherty that has put forth an idea of how Jesus is a legendary creation. I have seen a number of scholars in the field say they do not even have to address his views, since they have not been published in a NT journal. To me, this is ridiculas. These same scholars will address the most recent Dan Brown novel, or will comment on Anne Rice joining or leaving Catholicism, but they will not address Earl Doherty’s views. I think this is an example of gaming the system.
In the new world, Earl’s idea will be addressed, because it will be available to be read on some journal, and then others will begin to comment on them. And as more people comment on them, other will also. If the ideas are faulty, the faults will be found and pointed out. But if faults are not found, these ideas will then be incorporated into NT scholarship.
It is a brave new world, and it scares many people.
But it is bound to come.
Cheers! RichGriese@gmail.com
dang thats a long comment. you sure its not a post, disguised as a comment?