Bjorn Lomborg's opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal looks at the hate campaign that saw his proposed thinktank at the University of Western Australia consigned to ashes.
The new center in Perth was to be a collaboration with a think tank I run, Copenhagen Consensus, which for a decade has conducted similar research. Working with more than 100 economists, including seven Nobel laureates, we have produced research that measures the social and economic benefits of a wide range of policies, such as fighting malaria, reducing malnutrition, cutting air pollution, improving education and tackling climate change.
Therein lay the problem. This kind of comparison can upset those who are committed to advocating less effective investments, particularly poor responses to climate change.
When you think about it, a university that doesn't want to be associated with a think tank that includes no fewer than seven Nobel laureates is probably on shaky ground when claiming to be a seat of learning. This failure of UWA in its primary role - to stimulate learning - is also a point alluded to by Lomborg.
What is the lesson for young academics? Avoid producing research that could produce politically difficult answers. Steer clear of results that others might find contentious. Consider where your study could take you, and don’t go there if it means upsetting the status quo.
Universities have always operated as a kind of filter for employers, weeding out those who lack the intellectual capabilities that are seen as imperative in order to thrive as top management in large organisations. However, now that half the population attends a university, that role is gone, or at least nearly gone.
Their other role was as centres of intellectual curiousity, where researchers would be able to thrive by asking and answering difficult questions on one subject or another. But what the crushing of Lomborg, and others before him shows is that this role has gone too (or, again, nearly so).
That being the case, what is the point of a university?