5 highlights
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Max Weber might have been prescient about the dangers of pseudo research, and much earlier Kautilya’s Arthashastra had sought to guard the glorious intellectual life of Patliputra (modern Patna) against the perils of “misleading whims and vested interests masquerading as knowledge”. But ironically, with the expansion of information bombing, the dangers have multiplied.
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In supplying and consuming the dubious research/survey/study, the academics- phobic information sizzlers miss the vital element – the element of methodological and analytical rigour which underpins academic credibility and respectability.
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And of course, they are suffixed with recognised academic disciplines to take weird names such as pop sociology, medical science and even pop psychology. The fundamental problem with this avatar of ‘pop’ is that while its other versions like pop music annoys classical connoisseurs only, in the sphere of profound academic research, it is culpable of something more fundamental – misleading, misinforming, obfuscating and thickening the ‘veil of ignorance’.
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Clichéd as it may be, is there any getting away from the stark fact that the diversification of sources of information has witnessed an insidious upsurge in the trivialisation of information?
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So no need to be shocked by the finding that brushing your teeth three times a day can cause oral cancer (according to Alaskan researchers), because Texas researchers have a remedy too – brushing your teeth three times a day protects you against oral cancer. Planet Paradox.