My name is Mason Porter. I am a Professor in Nordita (Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics) and am Professor in Complex Systems in the Department of Mathematics at Stockholm University. Previously, I was a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at UCLA. Before that, I was Professor of Nonlinear and Complex Systems in the Mathematical Institute at University of Oxford. I was also a Tutorial Fellow of Somerville College. I am still a Senior Research Fellow of Somerville College.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
"We've Always Done It This Way"
I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment in this IFLS post.
It says that the most dangerous phrase in the English language is "We've Always Done It This Way". Every damn person in Oxford should take note of this. This place is guilty of such nonsense beyond belief.
My best answer to a particularly egregious one in a Mathematical Institute committee meeting went something along the lines of an immediate ripost of "Then we'll finally be correcting a longstanding inadequacy."
(And I have found several situations where, unsurprisingly, the "always" turned out only to be a couple of years --- including the example above.)
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