Quote Originally Posted by Peter View Post
History.

And history is a tricky one. The rigour is there but a fair amount of excellent works of history either come from outside academia or are denounced within it.

And I specifically said that scientific research does carry more rigour. Even within universities.

But often that rigour requires external input-Royal Socities, professional bodies etc etc.

Again, I am not questioning any research. I am merely challenging how universities operate. And don't make the mistake of thinking it is only former polys and the lower end of the sector that are hit with this. It is across the board.

Apart from Oxford and Cambridge, because of the GIGANTIC external funding they receive, mostly from us.
Oh, good man, P. Good man. Any specific areas? What bits did you really get into so I know I can ask you about? What was your dissertation on? {Mine was causes of WW2 - while most people think it was Versailles, or the Wall St Crash, or Appeasement, or some combination of all three, I believe the war was caused by the abnormality of Hitler's long term plans. Totally changed my opinion of Chamberlain. Without the benefit of hindsight, I personally would have taken every single decision Nev did in the lead up to the war. Though the other half of my 3rd year was imperial history and I'm rather into that as well. Especially British, the economic side, and of course India.}

Historians can be denounced in academia as well as outside. For example, the great AJP Taylor wrote a book on the causes of WW2 where he was trying to be too clever by half and overdid it. He later said it "wasn't one of my better works." But one small book I had to read for my dissertation was a collection of essays by different expert academic historians on specific parts of that AJPT book, ripping each section to shreds.

As I said, there has been *******s with the Passchedale casualty figures with people exaggerating on both the pro- and anti-Haig sides but subsequent historians have been able to go through their calculations and point out the {probably deliberate} errors, so we've got there in the end.

Likewise the Fisher thesis - he was the first person to be given full access to the Imperial German archives for WW1 - on the similarity of German war aims in both WWs - started in the '60s and gradually became the accepted historical consensus over the next 50 years.

Or in WW2, the concept of Hitler having a "Stufenplan" - a step by step plan for global domination - has again slowly become the consensus.

{Btw, did you know that Hitler's ideal aim - as expressed in the unpublished sequel to Mein Kampf - was, once he'd taken over Europe and then beaten Russia, for his German Empire and the British Empire to fight a war together against the Septics and beat them and then rule the world together, British and Nazi empires?}

Was there any specific areas you studied that led you to say that there's a real lack of rigour in academia?

I know the woke cancel culture bollox has affected all unis, not just former polys. But actual degrees in grievance studies subjects seem to be offered by the less good unis. Do you remember when 3 people submitted papers on these subjects to peer review journals just writing drivel, in one case taking stuff from Mein Kampf, and they all got published?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair

Some {at least} of the Russel Group are up there with Oxbridge. When I was at the LSE, it was top 5 globally with those two, Harvard and Yale. Imperial's now overtaken Cambridge, I believe. And UCL's always been decent.

A fellow historian. Well chuffed.

I guess that's why I believe the climate stuff. Cos in the last 35 years since I started taking an interest, I've watched it being debated and seen it become the consensus in the way the Fischer thesis did before my time - my course tutor is one of the experts and organised the 50th anniversary conference in 2011 by when it had become the accepted consensus - or the Stufenplan thesis has become accepted, starting in the 70s, but going from one of the theories to accepted consensus during and after my dissertation around 2012.