A business idea for these times, in which higher education is seen as a commodity, and students are treated like customers: a university modelled on #CrossFit. (And no, this is *not* about Greg Glassman’s idiotic views on COVID or racism.) #HigherEducation /1
From the point of this university “your education is just our warm-up.” Students will have to suffer (every single day) to increase their depth of thinking. Daily existential crises are part of the programme. Only this kind of learning builds sustainable cognitive muscle. /2
Cognitive nutrition will be strictly regulated. No greasy writings are part of the curriculum. Only Spartan intellectual rigour. No literary intoxication. Only Henry-Rollins style straight edge. No romantic poetry, just analytic prose. /3
You will not be allowed to chicken out. If you stay home, we’ll come and get you (well, figuratively, at the moment). You will be tied to a chair with your eyes clamped open. Rugs will be pulled from under your feet, and nobody will help you get back on your feet again. /4
And the best thing is: you’ll pay lots of money for this, because it fills an existential void. It’ll lift you out of the dark tea time of the soul that is our current age. You’re buying yourself a new you, transformed, a phoenix from the ashes of angst and confusion. /5
This education will be good for absolutely nothing. It will not teach you *any* practical skills (apart from those of intellectual survival). It will be Nietzschean at its core. Darwinian. Red in tooth and claw. The straight road to enlightenment. Just perfect for our times. /6
And here is where I need your help: after the recent Glassman shitshow (theguardian.com/us-news/2020/j…) I don’t want to call it #CrossFit University (may infringe a trademark anyway).

So please, oh hive mind, give me suggestions for what my university should be called. /7
Also: I need a few million to realise my concept.

*** Sponsors wanted! ***

You’ll get a free existential crisis for every donation above €1,000. /END

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More from @yoginho

Jan 22
I traveled to Paris to give my philosophy crash course for scientists () to a wonderful group of @lpiparis_ @FIREPhD students, as I do every year.

Contact me if you want to bring this course to your own institute! It's not only fun, but also useful...johannesjaeger.eu/philosophy.html
... allowing you to become a better researcher through philosophy. The course has an interactive, discussion-based format that is based on an online series of lecture which are freely available: .
It helps you reflect on your own scientific practice and world view using a (1) process-based, (2) perspectival-realist, and (3) deliberative approach to the philosophy of science. The course heavily focuses on students' own experiences, practices, and questions.
Read 4 tweets
Oct 10, 2023
New blog post just dropped!

"Assembly theory is cool... but doesn't quite do what its inventors say it does."



reviewing this recent Nature paper:



TL:DR: potentially interesting model, wrapped in utterly misleading packaging.johannesjaeger.eu/blog/assembly-…
nature.com/articles/s4158…
"I think assembly theory has lots of merit and potential, but this particular paper frames its argument in a way which is unfortunate and, frankly, more than just a bit misleading. My personal suspicion is that this has two reasons: (1) the authors hyped up their claims ...
... to get the paper published in a glam journal, plus (2) they also overestimate the reach and power of their model in ways which may be detrimental to its proper application and interpretation."
Read 6 tweets
Sep 9, 2023
Just received my expected rejection from @elife (after appeal).

The way I was rejected reflects the atrocious attitude of the journal & the whole field of biology towards conceptual work.

It also showcases a lack of intellectual integrity on behalf of the journal editors. 🧵
I submitted the paper knowing full well that @eLife usually restricts its scope to empirical work. The idea was to challenge that restriction, since (in my opinion) biology urgently needs a revival of serious conceptual efforts to prevent the descent of the field into pointless..
@eLife ... construction of large data sets that are increasingly costly to produce but yield diminishing returns in terms of insight and understanding into the workings and organization of living systems. Hence, no surprise when my work was deemed "out of scope." That's fair enough.
Read 21 tweets
Jan 19, 2022
The current #COVID19 media coverage around me seems to agree on three things: (1) there is nothing we can do against #omicron, (2) this variant is mild & the wave will be over soon, (3) we're soon going "endemic," to "live with the virus," & back to normality. /1
There seems to be very little push-back against this narrative, which is something that really surprises me. But worse than that: it does *not* bode well for the next pandemic (whether the next #COVID19 variant or something altogether more worrisome). /2
Re (1): we can't do anything & #ZeroCovid was never an option.

Well, we never really tried. Those few countries that did were isolated (either geographically or surrounded by countries who didn't implement any low-incidence measures). /3
Read 23 tweets
Feb 19, 2021
Our second paper on dynamical modularity, "Dynamical Modules in Metabolism, Cell and Developmental Biology" by @NickMonk14 & myself is now available as a preprint: osf.io/rydbn via @OSFramework /1
It complements our earlier evolutionary perspective on the subject (osf.io/vfz4t) with its more regulation-based approach and a long list of practical examples that illustrate our novel conceptual framework for the dynamical decomposition of complex systems. /2
Just like our earlier paper, the argument starts with the following observation: modular phenotypic traits imply that the underlying regulatory processes—the epigenotype of the organism—must be dissociable as well. How to decompose them, however, is not a trivial task. /3
Read 16 tweets
Dec 13, 2020
Darwinian Gaia: the persister perspective on evolution. aeon.co/essays/the-gai… via @aeonmag
@aeonmag I think this an amazingly refreshing and interesting new view on evolution. For several reasons. What’s even more amazing is that one of the best evolutionary biologists today has completely transformed his view of evolution in light of new evidence. How rarely does this happen?
@aeonmag I have huge respect for W. Ford Doolittle to come forth with this revolutionary change of mind. So much of our field is mired in dogmatic talking past each other. This new approach is a much needed fresh breath of air!
Read 5 tweets

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