Physicists sold their intellectual freedom to Newton and their financial freedom to Big Media and their time, for a pittance, to the School.
Big Media controls physics because Big Media controls the flow of information in physics and profits by buying the intellectual property of physicists cheap and selling it dear to schools.
In fact this is not correct. Big Media pays nothing for physicists’ product. Physicists are free content providers to Big Media. The way Big Music exploits the work of musicians the Big Media has been exploiting the work of physicists.
Big Media has total control on the flow of information in physics. Big Media controls the network, distribution and delivery. Big Media owns all three levels of delivery: textbook, peer reviewed journals and books, both popular and technical. The marketplace where all these various products are bought and sold is the School.
Big Media owns physics.
Physicists are merely the salesmen for the Big Media. Physicists donate their intellectual property to the Big Media which packages it in peer reviewed journals and sells it to schools with an outrageous profit margin. For being good salesmen for the Big Media the School pays physicists minimum wages. Compared to other professionals physicists work for minimum wages. No other professional class would work for what physicists are making. Lawyers basically do the same kind of work, minus teaching, and their wages are tied to marketplace. Physicists have no say how much they earn.
The picture of Doctor of Physics as painted above makes them look like pathetic fools who allow themselves to be manipulated by a giant monopoly in an era when such giant monopolies are challenged. The same Big Media in the news sector has been successfully challenged by bloggers. The Big Media used to control the flow of news exactly the same way they now control the flow of information in physics. Doctors of Physics are doing nothing to free themselves from the monopolistic choke hold of the Big Media.
Why? What do Doctors of Physics get in return for selling their scientific soul to Newton and the Big Media?
They get authority.
Since authority is proportional to fame the professional goal of every physicist is to achieve fame. Unfortunately for physicists the Big Media has use for only one star at any given time. The chosen star rules physics for a decade or so selling the latest physics absurdity as science. Once he gets old and starts losing market share he is replaced with the new media shaman.
Therefore, the content of physics is defined by the Big Media.
Then why do you think physicists are so slow in adopting blogging in order to break the monopoly of the Big Media?
The reason is again authority. A Doctor of Physics has invested too much time to collect enough authority. No physicist would trade that authority for free blogging where her authority would mean nothing to commenters. Unless they would earn professional points by blogging physicists will not enter blogging in big numbers.
Exception: If a physicist sees a possibility of achieving fame then he would go for blogging. Consider Cosmic Variance. Sean Carroll has made himself into a minor celebrity through blogging. So I would say there is still hope for physics.
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