On Twitter, there is a openly raw admission of why academia has decended into little more than intellectual tribalism, with ‘climate change’ being at the center of the issue. Dr. Matthew M. Wielicki has decided to leave the University of Alabama, citing personal reasons, as well as the clear rise of wokeness and protectionism over truth when it comes to climate science.
What follows is the collated series of tweets made by Wielicki in this thread – Anthony
Why I am leaving the University of Alabama: Some internet sleuths have discovered that I will be leaving my faculty position in the Department of Geological Sciences after this semester so I thought I should tell you why. As with most large decisions, the reasons…
…are mainly personal. COVID made me realize that we were really far from our families in CA and the travel on our elderly parents was taking a toll. The result was that our children were not seeing their grandparents very often. As a Polish immigrant I know what it’s like…
…to live far from family and I started to resent myself for choosing my career over my family’s time together. Furthermore, over the last decade or so, but especially the last few years, the obsession with universities and grant-funding institutions…
…on immutable characteristics of faculty and students and the push for equity in science above all else has dramatically changed the profession of an academic professor. The rise of illiberalism in the name of DEI is the antithesis of the principles that universities…
…were founded on. These are no longer places that embrace the freedom of exchanging ideas and will punish those that go against the narrative. Although I had worked from an early age to earn a Ph.D. and become a professor, like my father, I feel the profession…
…is no longer worthy of my efforts. Contributing to this is the earth science communities silence on the false “climate emergency” narrative. Members of the community routinely discuss the mental health effects of climate catastrophism but dare not speak out…
…lest they lose their positions and research funds. I will continue to objectively review the current state of the science and provide my expert opinions through social media and a future podcast and book (hopefully, coming soon). I appreciate all of the support I have…
…received from followers here and members within the community (who shall remain nameless). If you live in CO get ready for the Wielicki Whirlwind! Excited about this new chapter in my life. #climate #Wokeness
Just want to say thank you for the out pouring of support.
We here at WUWT may have had something to do with his awakening, and rejection of the climate cabal. Note the highlight.
It is too bad that the hallowed halls of academia should lose a sane voice and leave only the voices of the woke insanity to befoul our youths minds
Science is now run by consensus. A special nugget of expertise that ALGORE brought from the UN to the Universities. Another way of describing consensus is VOTING Majority. Which is why the Colleges have been churning out public school indoc…teachers at a breakneck pace since the Clinton Administration.
Dumb then down and then scare them into voting to save the world from global warming and everything it causes i.e. snow, drought, torrential rain, tornado, hurricanes, bad breath in dogs…the list is just too long.
But the scariest maladies for these youthful malleable minds of mush: acne, social awkwardness, heterosex and the dreaded premature ejac all of which the Government in unison with all other world governments can fix with absolute authority, lockdown control and preferred pronouns.
I find it rather amazing how well Ayn Rand predicted these developments decades ago (For the New Intellectual). Either nobody was paying attention, or nobody cared.
Family in CA and moving to CO? Or was that a typo.
Maybe the family is also moving out of CA to CO.
From reading replies on Twitter I think he’s moving from Alabama to Colorado with his family to be nearer his parents and extended family in California. Possibly to a new job in Denver where he is going to live
But that may not be 100% accurate.
If they’re lucky!
playing on the saw “like jumping from the frying pan into the fire” Going from Alabama to either destination is like jumping from the top of the refrigerator into either the frying pan or the fire.
Saute or flambe?
What a sad state of affairs – that a Professor should leave his profession because of a false story about a climate disaster for which no proof exists even of its existence. That certainly shows the power of the media, and of the almighty dollar, and the uneducated idiocy of many politicians.
For some time I have felt that the truth will only come out generally after a massive climatic disaster, costing many lives unnecessarily, hits Europe and / or America.
How enormously sad that we have come to this!
It is not just the climate disaster. It is bloated administration running the show. It is time to quit before you end up giving a black woman an A when she deserves a B.
Again, no “climate disaster” exists and won’t exist until we descend into the next glaciation. Please stop playing their stupid game.
It is also the fact that in any science related to the earth, there is no funding if you deny AGW.
Only fools deny AGW — why would any professor do that?
Denying CAGW is correct, but is another subject.
What percentage of the warming would have to be natural for the hypothesis of AGW itself to basically be wrong? It think we still have a kids’ book lying around the house (somewhere) explaining how the increased dust levels caused by farming are causing the planet to cool. (Also beyond all doubt, of course.)
And therein lies the problem. Eisenhower was a prophet.
The most probable climate disaster will be nations ruining themselves to prepare for a disaster that never comes, even as the countries sink into deeper poverty. That may wake people up—if their brains aren’t riddled with climate nonsense in the meantime.
I think a more objective evaluation of the situation is that they are ‘preparing‘ themselves into a disaster by means that insure disaster in the real world but would not be successful if the disaster they preach were actually to occur.
Nut Zero itself will be the only real climate disaster.
Today’s climate is the best climate since the Holocene Climate Optimum ended 5000 years ago. C3 photosynthesis plants would prefer more CO2 in the air — at least double todays 420ppm — but todays CO2 level is still the best level for C3 plants in millions of tears
More CO2 in the atmosphere, and more global warming with the 1975 to 2015 pattern and timing, would be even more good news.
We love global warming here in Michigan
Give us more of that !
Daily list of the best climate science and energy articles I’ve read:
Honest Climate Science and Energy
“Nut Zero itself will be the only real climate disaster.
Today’s climate is the best climate since the Holocene Climate Optimum ended 5000 years ago…..”
Very true.
A fairly recent peer reviewed study looked at the optimum conditions for life to start on other planets. They found that the optimum temperature for life to evolve was – drum roll please – five degrees C warmer than Earth….
Chris
The most probable disaster. NOT “climate disaster.” The only “climate disaster” will be the descent into the next glaciation.
It is not obvious that non-consensus climate change censorship at the college was more than one minor factor for leaving his job.
There is no indication of that, other than one sentence in one Tweet.
Other factors appeared to be much more important in his decision to quit.
There is no indication he ever researched climate change, or even talked about climate change in his job.
In fact, in response to the alleged pressure to not question consensus climate science, i appears the assistant professor was part of the problem, not part of the solution.
An article about him, celebrating his alleged climate beliefs (apparently not ever talked about, even on his own website), makes no sense to me.
This article is deceptive and misleading, in my opinion. It would never make my daily list of the best climate science and energy articles I’ve read:
Honest Climate Science and Energy
Mike, it won’t be a climate disaster that will stop this climate scam, but economies brought to the brink by the crazy Net Zero type policies. The people will then realize they have been massively conned and will respond accordingly, by protests, boycotts and finally at the ballot box to remove governments who are responsible for these stupid, costly and morally wrong climate/energy policies. The left who dominantly perpetrate this anti-scientific nonsense just have to learn we cannot be taken for granted all the time.
There ARE NO “climactic disasters,” only WEATHER related disasters. Please stop playing their stupid game.
Pierre: Well, Marie. Your fellow Polish scientist has been driven out of academia by greed and lies. Sounds familiar.
Marie: Best wishes to you, Matthew. You are right. Science is only about ideas. And remember, in the end, truth wins.
When I was a child I was given a book containing potted biographies of great scientists. The Curies were given a chapter, and I found their dedication to science inspiring.
It wins when the issue is no longer relevant for policies.
11 years ago I managed an early retirement package and walked away from research and teaching. The University was already in a “politically correct” state, and I missed out on mandatory “implicit bias training” by a couple of years. My legacy is 2-3 citations a week and some day I will sign in to Research Gate to find out what they are to.
Never been happier.
That’s great! Good for you!
It’s sad that academic retirement is a prerequisite to truth telling. Wielicki looks relatively young, so I wonder about his financial situation that allows such freedom.
University faculty could organize themselves and oppose the destruction of their discipline; especially in the sciences, where the offense is most obvious. There would be defense in numbers.
But that doesn’t happen. University faculty, including science faculty, remain isolated and silent, and preside over the evisceration of rigor. One wonders why.
Captured.
“Work” is a bad four letter word to this retired lazy bum.
I retired at age 51, and so did the wife.
Better to be happy than to be rich.
How long ago was it that David Bellamy was cancelled? Not much has changed – fear keeps them in line
David Bellamy was an actual biologist. David Attenborough is a naturalist.
Attenborough isn’t just drinking the koolaid, he’s handing it out.
Even if one wants to be exceedingly generous the so called ‘anthropgenic climite change’ could be at best a badly formulated hypothesis. To become a scientific theory it needs irrefutable proof, but there is no existence of it.
Even if it could be proved and accepted as a theory, no science theory is the absolute truth.
Kim Jong-un is winning but he doesn’t know it yet.
Well, to move from hypothesis to theory, it needs to testable and therefore falsifiable. The climatistas attribute every change to CAGW, making the hypothesis untestable and therefore unscientific.
It really is a travesty that people with real knowledge are denied the opportunity to pass that on to another generation. We need to find ways to ensure that still happens.
” with ‘climate change’ being at the center of the issue.”
Don’t miss the non-center remarks.
Marxist controlled MSM has taken over science. Few people realize the implications of the phrase “lest they lose their positions and research funds”. MSM calls it conspiracy theory like everything else that counters the narrative.
It is distressing but not surprising to get this news. How long can the academic world sustain these blatant attacks on empirical science? The infestation of Malthusian ideology, and that is just what it is at its core, into the scientific world is nearly complete. Prof Wielicki can take up residence wherever he wants and I wish him well, but he should not be cowed by his beliefs which should be main stream science. When will empirical science counter-attack this hysterical nonsense?
“How long can the academic world sustain these blatant attacks on empirical science?”
As long as the government subsidizes science and student loans. You get more of what you subsidize, in this case marginal fields full of marginal academics indoctrinating marginal students. Everyone knows they are marginal, including themselves, and they compensate to make up for it.
I think, as this type of thing moves forward, we will be seeing Atlas Shrugging.
Ok Dr. Matt, so if I understand you correctly you will NOT drink the kool aid?
Universities are now operated as businesses, run by business people who usually have academic credentials, but don’t think like intellectuals any more. And like most businesses, they promote conformity to current fads like wokery and genderism, because any visible divergence from what is currently the acceptable norm might impact funding (and that’s what really matters!).
And anyone working in a field that relates to “climate” has the additional burden of having to teach and/or do research without actually contradicting the climate orthodoxy. Vicious personal attacks and depersoning were prevalent in climate long before they became prevalent in other disciplines. Just ask Judith Curry, Sally Baliunas or Willy Soon, to name a few.
How have we come to this pass? WHY have we come to this pass? Is there any hope that the future might see a return to sanity?
See Eisenhower’s farewell address for the answer. He saw it coming before I was born.
Matt Weilicki wrote, ” not worthy of my efforts.”
I can relate.
Staying in the environment of academic research (biomedical immunology) was also not worthy my effort.
There’s too much gate keeping going on at the journals. But the real soul-crusher for me was watching the never-ending cycle of NIH/NSF research grant writing and grants failures by both tenured and non-tenured faculty that was disheartening to me. I watched first-hand for 8 years as bright, motivated Assistant Profs (many lacking tenure, needing that first major R01 grant to get tenure) spending at least half of their time and efforts merely on writing grant proposals, and re-writing grants proposals, only to have them repeatedly fail to get funding, which meant they weren’t actually doing the research they needed to get grant success. All a very Catch-22 cycle of failure that relied more on sheer luck than any intellectual skills or hard work.
I also watched tenured, full professors in mid-career spending at least 1/3 or more their time (and weekends not with their families) writing grants and re-writing failed grants, because if they didn’t get that next renewal it meant their lab funds would dry-up. And that meant their post-docs and techs would lose funding (and thus leave) and practically their research would grind to complete halt, and creating that Catch-22 trap just like the non-tenured faculty faced. So the pressure to keep the grants coming was immense even on the tenured researchers, and that was always taking away from the excitement of slow, steady working through actual science problems with small teams of post-docs, techs, and grad students doing the lab work experiments and analyzing data and writing the papers.
Now throw on top of those Grant pressures the merit-killing ideas of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI, stemming from the Marxist ideas of CRT) being pushed down everyone’s throats. Everyone at these universities now must bow to this loss of merit ideology or get “cancelled”, and this is going to destroy many institutions as bright people, accustomed to meritocracy (success by merit and hard work), simply walk away like Matt is doing here.
“I will continue to objectively review the current state of the science and provide my expert opinions through social media and a future podcast and book…”
I look forward to see what he has to say. I trust that geology has a lot to say about the long term stability of the Earth’s climate(s) unlike those loud mouths who are fearful of tipping points and who demand that we immedietely make revolutionary changes to our civilization. Idiots like Ale Gore who cries that the oceans are boiling.
An interesting possibility, certainly related to geology
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-01112-z
Nahhh… The Earth’s core is slowing because the excess CO2 in the atmosphere is slowing down (or maybe it is accelerating?) the rotation of the crust. Just look at the correlation – CO2 goes up, and core rotation goes down. Settled science. Doesn’t even matter which way anything is going. We just need to look at the tree rings.
Tree rings only indicate which part of hollow earth they are located over, everyone knows that.
Geothermal is the problem, pulling heat out of the core causes it to slow and eventually solidify then the magnetic field collapses
Oh and we all die
Of course
Even in Alabama?
We’ll try to stay serene and calm
When Alabama gets the bomb…
Tom Lehrer, the cynic’s cynic.
For some reason I read those lines to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Mother”.
Given the cut-throat nature of academia this looks more like a case of jumping before being pushed. On google scholar Dr. Wielicki has published 29 papers since 2008 that have been cited a total of 316 times. And in most scientific fields at top universities that is not sufficient to get tenure.
Whether you like it or not it is still a case of publish or perish at top universities.
Izaak is free to put Dr. Mathew Wielicki down; but a Southern man don’t need Izaak around anyhow.
But neither should you believe everything you read on twitter. People’s academic publishing records are easily available and easy to compare. And while that has nothing to do with somebody’s ability to do research it is far too often the key factor driving promotions and appointments.
“People’s academic publishing records are easily available and easy to compare.”
And convey nothing about the quality of their work or their value to the institution.
Pat,
I completely agree. But that was not my point. Unfortunantly universities base their hiring decisions almost sole on citation counts and grant income and not on anything meaningful. And on those metrics Dr. Wielicki would not appear to be on track to get tenure at any top university in the US.
Tenure is granted or not after a tenure committee reviews the candidate. This includes solicitation of external peers for their evaluation. The process is much more thorough than you imply, Izaak.
Further, you have no idea of Dr. Weilicki’s grant support. Here’s his academic webpage: https://matthewwielicki.com/.
Check his CV and publications. He’s been doing very well.
According to Scopus Dr. Wielicki has 13 published papers (not conference abstracts) that have been cited a total of 262 times in 10 years. Furthermore he appears to have been awarded zero grants. This is a publication record and rate that is below the average in his field for getting tenure. Have a look at:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0276616
And again this has nothing to do with the quality of his work or his research. There are plenty of brilliant scientists out there who do have a good publication record. And they suffer for it.
University of Alabama is not Harvard. Dr. Weilicki’s Webarchive April 2022 UA page shows that he was doing good work, and at a pace comparable to others in his department.
Your ad hominem is merely an attempt to rescue the trendy recrudescence of systemic racism/sexism in the academy from an embarrassment.
Indeed. Einstein was rarely quoted.
We’d expect nothing less from you.
As we know, if you don’t toe the line and follow the narrative you don’t get published.
But good on you to continue “not thinking”.
Pat,
What exactly is the narrative when it comes to dating the India-Asia collision? Dr. Wielicki work on that was recently published and I would love to know what you think “toe the line” means in that context?
There are lots of reasons why somebody might not get published. Which includes just not being very good at their job as well as not following the narrative. So how do you know it is the latter and not the former?
One of my best papers resolved 20 years of unexplained data in terms of molecular structure and thermodynamics. It has received only 5 citations because it put an end to the entire field of study.
Your published/citation analysis is naïve, Izaak
You hit the field of study with a Royal Flush, game over, man! Seems like that’s the kind of move many researchers would love to do but they won’t because if they solve all the problems and make it pointless for anyone to do further work in their field *what will they do*?
Thanks, Gregg.
There was plenty of research left to do, but the paper showed it would be a hard grind. I suspect people left for more readily accessible fields of study.
Pat,
my analysis is cynical not naive. Citations are not a meaningful metric but they are what university hiring committees use. Whether you like it or not the name of the game is “publish or perish” not “be an outstanding research and/or teacher”.
It is unfortunantly all too common that outstanding researchers or great lecturers do not get promoted or hired because they do not know how to play the game. But with typically between 50 to 100 applicants for every tenure track position at top universities that is the reality and there will always be someone likely enough to get a grant or a paper published at just the right time to get the job over other equally skilled people.
You implied Dr. Weilicki was not productive enough to get tenure at UA, and that he left to forestall being terminated.
That’s not a cynical appraisal, Izaak. That’s an ad hominem constructed to diminish the ethical force of his resignation. Your view is also not supported by Dr. Weilicki’s academic record.
Dr. Weilicki left UA because the university has been captured by progressives, who are aggressively destroying academic and scholarly integrity. Dr. Weilicki clearly has standards of integrity that UA has fatally betrayed. Hence his ethical departure.
At least we have real life, current events examples to relate to academic cleansing in 1930s Germany. A lot of great academics were forced out and into exile. Einstein tried to resist before campus wokeness on the eve of WW1 but failed with only two votes.
I would take this as a victory for the climate realist community. This proves that we do have influence and we have to keep it up.
++++
The assistant professor has a website:
Dr. Matthew M. WielickiDr. Matthew M. Wielicki’s home page (matthewwielicki.com)
His students seemed to like him
Matthew Wielicki at University of Alabama – RateMyProfessors.com
Wielicki doesn’t seem old enough to retire, based on the photo.
His publications — the last ones listed were in 2019 — don’t seem to involve climate science. I couldn’t find anything he had written concerning climate science.
He lists several reasons for leaving, and only one concerned climate science: “Contributing to this is the earth science communities silence on the false “climate emergency” narrative”
Weilicki complains about the silence on the false climate emergency, but as far as I can tell, he was contributing to that silence. With my ten minutes of research, it seems Weilicki is part of the problem he complains about. He apparently remained silent fearing he’d lose his job. He does not appear to use his own website to discuss his climate science views. So we have to speculate about those views He’s no hero worthy of an article here, in my opinion.
Daily lists of the best climate science and energy articles I’ve read:
Honest Climate Science and Energy
Yes Richard, thanks for that.
Yes, he does mention he is tired of having to remain silent to retain his position.
I can’t see that you’ve added any insights to the discussion, but it’s always good to get a word in.
One who complains about pressure to be silent, and is part of the problem — including on his own website — is not a hero who deserves an article of praise.
It also does not appear that climate science had much to do with his departure.
Can anyone here quote the assistant professor on climate science?
I do not use Twitter so could only scan his published papers and website — I found nothing.
This guy seems as silent on climate science as anyone could be.
As a result, I believe this article is exaggerating the climate change angle as a reason for someone leaving a job.
I’ve been reading Dr. Wielicki’s tweets since 7 April 2022, when I was alerted that he tweeted out my “Propagation of Error … paper.
Since then, I’ve watched him become ever more angry and ever more outspoken in dealing with alarmists. One may hope reading “Propagation..” played a part in his journey to climate sanity.
He’s dead on right about DEI ruining universities. I see it happening at Stanford. In substituting partisan propaganda for honest pedagogy, the universsities are in violation of the tenure agreement — public money in return for unbiased scholarship.
Virtually no American university now qualifies for tax-payer support. I believe that with the outright overt indoctrination of students, American universities — especially public universities — are in violation of law. They’ve become criminal enterprises. Their administrators and staff may well be subject to a RICO prosecution. The universities should be defunded. No more state or federal money. No government grants.
That’s why Hillsdale College has never accepted any government funding, either directly or via student loans, grants, or scholarships. All funding students use for attending Hillsdale have to come from private sources.
Hillsdale is in my blood and memory. My father was born there and we would go there often for the auctions at the fairgrounds. I bought a Gilbert chemistry set for a quarter there once, and I became a chemist in no small part because of that investment.
I hung out with the daughter of the president of Hillsdale College a couple of times. She was wild, wilder that me.
“She was wild, wilder that me.”
10 yard penalty for not providing details !
Here in Michigan we have Governor Witless
But we also have Hilldale College and their great, free Imprimis libertarian newsletter that I’ve been receiving in the mail and reading since 1973:
Imprimis | A Publication of Hillsdale College
Pat,
and would you stand in the doorway with George Wallace or do you accept that the University of Alabama is better now because of DEI rules put in place by Kennedy using
armed troops?
It was Eisenhower, not Kennedy, who forced integration of the South. Republican, not Democrat.
DEI in every respect is racist and sexist. It imposes quotas and privileges ethnicities. DEI is entirely in the spirit of Jim Crow. But you know all that, don’t you Izaak. It’s just your Jim Crow.
Pat,
I am talking specifically about the actions of George Wallace who tried to prevent African American students from enrolling at the University of Alabama in 1963. In response President Kennedy signed an executive order ordering the Alabama national guard to remove George Wallace.
So my question is do you approve of President Kennedy’s actions? Similarly do you support a woman’s right to vote and to earn equal pay for equal work? These are clear examples of DEI type actions which work to make society a better place.
DEI does none of what you claim. It is not integration. DEI imposes racial and sexual quotas in hiring. It violates merit.
What do you have against merit, Izaak? You’re implying that black and hispanic students are incapable of achievement. Do you actually believe that?
Not surprising considering the entire US government is under control of a criminal enterprise called the Biden administration/Democratic party with the DOJ thru the FBI acting as the “enforcers “ aided and abetted by the rest of the Deep State and NGO s of all types and stripes.
The US southern border crisis should have alerted even democrat voters that the US government has gone rogue and totally corrupt. But no. So the only logical conclusion is that democratic voters are totally fine with it; and by default are just as corrupt themselves.
We are now a nation of (corrupt) men; not laws.
After 36 years as a Geology professor and now retired for 22 years I cringe whenever I get the newsletter from my old department where I was a student. I fully expect to read that a trans professor has received a very fat government grant to study how climate change has affected the number of lesbian trilobites who are able to dance on the back of a dinosaur of color.
Wokeism – post-modernism, it’s a virus slowly eating its way through universities. However sooner or later it will eat itself in a self-destructing orgy of cannibalistic intent. Uni’s have always been a place for the loony left to go bat-shit crazy – like a phase one or some grow up.
Institutionalized, narrow, with no real-world experience, the elite University “professors” live in a secluded, cloistered world devoid of any reality, consumed with indoctrination of the young to the “cause”.
Was it Jordan Peterson that has said — “I cannot recommend a university degree, going to university is a waste of time and money.”
Get a trade qualification and you can fix the nutty professor’s toilets when they s!@t everywhere and on everything…
Rant over…..
Not surprised at all.
As a member of the AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists), I am pretty much ready to throw in the towel on that geologic organization for many of the same reasons as Prof. Weilicki. They do way more to support other narratives (ie everything woke / alt energy / etc) than they do supporting petroleum geoscientists. They should be the mouthpiece of support and defense for the Petroleum Industry and it’s professionals, defending the profession against all attacks but unfortunately the opposite is true.
Same with the American Chemical Society.
I’ve twice emailed the ACS board, Scissor, with the message that climate models have no predictive value and a link to “Propagation …” The response has been silence.
I’d have thought the analytical chemists among them would credit a study of calibration uncertainty, but evidently not.
Likewise the EPA, likewise the IPCC, likewise the American Physical Society. Dead silence in response to my communication of their mistake.
There’s not a gram of integrity in the lot.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.” ― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
It’s disappointing. Another skeptic leaves. These institutions will soon be able to say, truthfully, that ALL of their members/faculty agree with the alarmist positions. Outside voices will be ignored.
We are not winning.
The assistant professor made a choice:
Fight the power, or quietly resign
He took the easy way out
The resignation did not seem close to “extraordinary” to me
Your lack of charity is appalling. He made it quite clear that the primary reasons for leaving were personal. Everything else is merely additional weight on an already tilted scale. To suggest that he took “the easy way out” is a conclusion that comes only from your own biases.
He also made it public, and included reasons that were ideological. So I don’t give charity for that. If you don’t want to fight, then just go away quietly. We don’t need an exit speech.
Welcm to the club!
I also have left the state laboratory where I worked so that I could honestly earn my life.
I’ll give some details: when the “calculation” of the “carbon footprint” of agriculture exploitations started to enter my country; when research institutions were mandated to publish and work to achieve the percent quotas of women and other “minorities”, violating the selection by merit; when the direction and management of the institutions became dictated by political loyalties without regard of the correspondence of the background of managers with the objectives of the institutions and without regarding the opinions of peers; when financing lines of research became dependent of lobbying, of financing by private companies, of what seemed to be “important” according to PR operations in accurately selected timings and not with regard to the needs of the country for its development; etc., a very big etc.