An academic paper funded by two National Science Foundation grants bears no relation to the intended purpose of that money.
In 2009, the US National Science Foundation awarded an âengineering education researchâ grant of $150,000 to Eric Pappas, a professor at James Madison University.
According to the official record, that money had a purpose. It was supposed to:
- âintegrate instruction in sustainability into design courses across three years of the undergraduate engineering curriculumâ
- âprovide hands-on learning experiences that develop studentsâ abilities to deal with sustainabilityâ
- and âbetter prepare students for the practice of engineering through developing their understanding of environmental sustainabilityâ
In 2012, Pappas became the primary recipient of another National Science Foundation grant. So far it has paid out $431,200. It isnât due to expire until 2015, and the names of five colleagues are associated with it. Itâs therefore unclear what the final amount will be â and how much of the money will be used by Pappas personally.
In any event, the public record for this second grant tells us that these funds are also tied to certain expectations. Pappas is supposed to:
- âstudy and assess ways in which sustainability instruction in five contexts can be integrated into existing material in engineering, science, social science, education, and the humanitiesâ
- provide âengineering students a comprehensive understanding for solving sustainability problemsâ
- âcreate a personalized instructional approachâ
- develop âa low-cost global model for sustainability research, instruction, and assessmentâ
- and âprovide an inexpensive, scalable, and transferable model for integrating systems and cross-disciplinary instruction.into an engineering course or curriculum.â
Earlier this year, a paper Pappas wrote courtesy of these grants (both are cited at the end of it) appeared in the Journal of Sustainability Education â which describes itself as a peer-reviewed publication.
The PDF version of the paper may be downloaded here. It runs to 27 pages and is titled Radical Premises in Sustainability Reform.
I challenge anyone to find a single sentence in that text that relates in any way to any of the eight bullet points listed above.
For starters, the words âstudentâ and âcurriculumâ simply donât appear, while âengineeringâ comes up only once â in a general discussion (p. 3). Similarly, the word âeducationâ is barely mentioned â on three occasions itâs included in a list in passing (pp. 3, 4, 16), in another instance thereâs a reference to the overall size of the US education budget (p. 10).
This means that, after cashing cheques approaching $600,000 from the National Science Foundation, Pappas has produced a paper that has virtually no connection to the reasons he was given that money.
To describe these 27 pages as âembarrassingâ is being charitable. They are an example of misanthropic green analysis at its most banal.
Here is the first sentence: âWe are a civilization in decline.â And the last one: âWe will be held accountable for our own behavior.â
In between we find gems such as these:
- âwe are in denial abut our future, and we need to stop âidolizing the futureââ (p. 2)
- âour faith in technology has reached religious proportionsâ (p. 16, italics in original)
- âThis paper is not the author venting frustrations.it is an appeal to human conscience and action on the most primal level: survival.â (p. 2, ellipsis in original)
- âWe are the problem.We are own own worst enemy.our largely narcissistic behavioursâ (p. 2)
- âwe have reached the limits of growthâ (p. 4)
- âWe are literally eating ourselves to deathâ (p. 9)
- âour increasingly dire global situationâ (p. 14)
- âour selfish behaviorâ (p. 15)
- âwe are in imminent danger of drowningâ (p. 15)
- âthe destruction of our own habitatâ (p. 16)
The following statement, though â the part in bold â may be my personal favourite:
Without the hoped for massive and immediate transformation, or any significant indication that such a change is imminent or in progress, we have become subject to evolution, that we may simply have been âwiredâ to evolve out of existence (It has been suggested that the human brain, still biologically prehistoric, cannot process the ethical complexities of advanced technology). [p. 5, bold added]
On page three, Pappas says âthe central purpose of this paper is to make the reader uncomfortable.â Mission accomplished.
This is what passes for peer-reviewed academic literature in the 21st century. This is what professors who have been awarded more than half a million in National Science Foundation funding give back to society in exchange.