Dennis: I said that the *funding* for permanent positions in Britain has decreased, and this is surely the case (since 2010, funding for British academia has been subject to budget cuts. The rise in tuition fees was meant to compensate for the spending cuts). I do not know if the number of British continuing positions has decreased - I tried to find figures, but no luck. Anecdotally, following the funding cuts, we have seen several UK departments (including in small departments in philosophy) close down. I would not be surprised if proportionally, there is an increase of stipendiary temporary lecturers compared to permanent faculty over the years (similar to the US situation). In any case, I have spoken to faculty members of various British universities who say they would actually need to hire new permanent lecturers, but can't afford to. The situation you refer to (with the sabbaticals) is an American situation. In Canada, Europe, and Australia, projects work differently. They are often state-subsidized, and come in several forms including, (1) person-based postdocs, such as the British academy postdocs, the (Dutch) NWO veni and vidi scheme, or (2) large grants for individual profs who can hire postdocs to carry it out, such as AHRC grants. Both of these types of grants provide positions for postdocs: either work on a grant of your own, or work on a project of someone else, as a postdoctoral research assistant. In some countries, like Germany, it is common for PhDs to be in postdoc positions for years, hopping from one temporary project to another until one is in one's late 30s or early 40s, and then, hopefully, secure a permanent position. It's similar in Belgium, some Scandinavian countries, and Australia. So given this, the project market does have a large influence on the agenda of philosophy. Young philosophers need to be careful in the kinds of postdoc projects they submit - do they have "impact"? Will an interdisciplinary panel, composed of literature scientists, historians and archaeologists, and the odd philosopher, understand my project? And prospective project leaders need to be similarly careful in the kinds of projects they submit. So the direction of research of young philosophers is pushed towards where the money is, and this seems to be practical ethics (all fields), applied philosophy of science, rather than, say, metaphysics or medieval philosophy.

The focus is often on Templeton, but as your post indicates, the problem runs a lot deeper. In Europe, Australia and Canada, a lot of research is funded by state-financed and private-funded grants. A large percentage of academics are not in tenured or TT positions, but on temporary projects, where they have to manage to keep themselves and others afloat. Many of those projects explicitly ask for a concrete applicability in business or for an immediate broader societal relevance. As a result of this, many of these projects in philosophy are in areas like practical ethics, including medical ethics, enhancement, applied philosophy of science, etc. There are projects on the ethical consequences of nanotechnology. In the Netherlands, traditionally a place with both a continental and an analytic tradition, continental philosophy is rapidly dwindling as a direct result of its apparent lack of fundability. Given that projects are often evaluated by broad, interdisciplinary panels (this is the case, e.g., for the Dutch NWO and Belgian FWO), less sexy forms of philosophy have a hard time getting funded (e.g., metaphysics, most areas of epistemology, ancient and medieval philosophy, philosophy of art). In many European countries, there has been a decrease in funding for permanent positions within universities (e.g., in Britain), sometimes accompanied by an increase in funding for granting agencies (this happened in the Netherlands, where it's virtually impossible to get a permanent position if you have not been able to get a large state grant). This will over time have large consequences for philosophy. I've known several people deliberately steer their research into a more fundable direction, for instance someone who did philosophy of mind with a focus on the self who is now working on neuro-ethics. While I do not think this is necessarily a bad thing, it is worrisome that concrete applicability becomes a driving force in deciding the direction of philosophy.

Economic migrant:thanks very much for sharing. As I only have direct experience with the Belgian system and not with the Turkish system, it is good to hear from people with inside info on Turkey. It's already a great step forward that there are a set of criteria (of the YOK) that promote transparency and that are clearly defined. But transparency in hiring and promotion is very hard to achieve.

Hi Neil: If you click on "English" (top right corner), you can find explanation about the scheme in English (unfortunately, there is no stable URL for the English translation). They offer postdocs as well as permanent academic appointments. The Type 1 Odysseus gives a 5-year general start up grant for excellent foreign (or foreign-educated) researchers, with the understanding that the university where they carry out research will offer them a permanent appointment after that period. Perks include low teaching load for these first 5 years and enough money to hire several postdocs and PhD students, as well as money for travel, research expenses. While the procedure is fairly transparent, recruitment of suitable candidates (nomination of candidates) isn't, so personal connections do play a big role. I've seen hiring through this scheme, and typically people within a department think of names of people they can nominate: What about x? He's got a really good research profile. Or, Y has been a professor in the US now for many years and is internationally well-known, let's ask if he's interested. The names people come up with are usually those of people that are in their informal network, alas, given the overrepresentation of men in Belgian academia, most nominated candidates thus turn out to be men.

Hi Mark: Sorry, that was a hasty overgeneralization. I forget that American departments have these stats all handy and ready, and you are right, there are some departments that may not be ranked high but nevertheless have excellent placement records. But the point can be refined: I think one should definitely think twice before enrolling in a grad program that doesn't have a good placement record. I wonder whether students take this enough into consideration. The odds of landing a tenure track position are a great deal better for students from departments than for others.

I'm now inclined to think that if one cannot get in a top program one should think very hard before enrolling in grad school - those odds of 1/4 I take it are baseline probability, they are probably better for top-ranked candidates and a great deal worse for unranked programs. It takes *a lot* of hard work (lots of papers to publish, grants to apply for and be successful in obtaining) before one can make up lack of pedigree.

Thanks for your thoughts, Mike. I do regard this as an open question, with multiple issues that need to be considered. First, how great is the potential damage one can put on one's children by teaching them YEC as parents? This question seems to vary geographically. Apparently, in the US it is possible even to be an accomplished medical doctor while holding YEC beliefs, whereas in Europe (or at least most parts of it), one would be regarded as a (to put it starkly) backward religious fundamentalist. So it is clearly more damaging to be a YEC proponent in Europe than in the US. Second, given that the role of stewardship, secularly construed, is not just stewardship on behalf of the child, but of society, how damaging is teaching them YEC? I think here, there is a real cost to society. For people who promote YEC have an agenda that is set to undermine secular scientific knowledge (this is not restricted to YEC but also old earth creationism). See for instance this book http://www.creationismstrojanhorse.com/ I think secular science is beneficial, and a separation between church and state in education and other domains is beneficial even to the majority of religious believers. So insofar as YEC threatens this state of affairs, instilling it in one's children is in effect (at least in my view) damaging to society, and thus not part of good stewardship. However, I don't know in how far parents are aware of the political dimensions that underlie YEC. I assume that most endorse YEC because they feel a literalist interpretation of Scripture is most in line with their beliefs. If they are utterly unaware of this, I am not sure how we can say they are culpable.

Jonathan: that rings especially true of YEC as it is now. Compared to, say, old-style YEC which was largely the result of ignorance, current YEC adherents get a variety of books, CDs, and other pedagogical devices to "arm" their kids so that they can challenge their teachers at school, or their professor at college. This seems a distinguishing feature of YEC as compared to other false religious beliefs that parents may unwittingly instill in their children - it seems more like indoctrination than parenting.

Hi Kevin: I'm sorry about that, Typepad is a bit too restrictive in marking things as spam. Rather than reposting, you can e-mail me or wait for me to check the spam folder (which I do regularly). I'm thinking that what is morally permissible for parents is not always morally permissible for an educational institution. Whereas we can't realistically expect parents to present their children with a religion-neutral view, I think we can expect this of schools, to the extent it is possible. A school that does this is grievously falling short of its task to make people scientifically literate - so to me it does verge on the abuse of children. What if your child circles the "wrong" answers?

Hi Yan: I'm fascinated by the suggestion that some falsehoods would be beneficial to social flourishing. Could you give specific examples? I agree that Dawkins' position is quaint, but I'm struggling to think about some concrete instances of falsehoods that would be beneficial to teach children. Unfortunately, teaching children YEC doesn't help them to become more critical - the whole creationism movement is geared towards making children *distrustful* of science (with shorthands like 'were you there?') - not to make them critical (as they themselves say they are doing...). I had a FB conversation with a former theology professor, who said he noticed a shift in YEC students. He taught at a very conservative faith based school. In the 1980s, he would have YEC students who were not aware of geology, evolutionary theory etc. Those students were invariably amazed at his discussions of genesis in the light of science, and the biblical criticism. They typically would go home being more knowledgeable than their parents. However, more recently he noticed a shift: when the classes were about Genesis, some students seemed to come armed with standard objections (the were you there objection, the pessimistic induction etc), clearly through some form of indoctrination they received earlier. The creationist movement is getting cleverer and more organized, and they definitely see it their aim to destroy our acceptance of scientific knowledge through whatever means they see fit.

Rebecca: the question about Santa is an interesting one. FWIW, my partner and I never taught our daughter about Santa, because we would both feel very uncomfortable telling her falsehoods deliberately like that (more precisely, the Dutch-Belgian equivalent is Saint Nicholas). Remarkably, I've had a lot of criticism from other parents who say that we are (not outright mistreating) but deliberately having our child miss out on the wonderful experience that belief in Santa gives. But I remember as a child that belief in Santa was not entirely wonderful (e.g., the anxiety preceding the day I would get a present - perhaps I hadn't been a good enough girl to deserve one and would get nothing!) So I do not take it for granted that lying about Santa is morally problematic. It doesn't figure in my personal view of responsible parental stewardship, but I concede that even if there is harm done, the harm is probably relatively small, hence its figuring as an example of a non-harmful (or at least not significantly harmful) deliberate falsehood. As for religious beliefs, I do communicate what I personally believe, but I would never dream of forcing my children to accept those beliefs, indeed, I invite my daughter to question and challenge those ideas.

Thanks for the pointers, Kevin! I'm not a specialist in philosophy of education, and will definitely look at the book you recommend.

Difficult and interesting question. Like Sara, I would vastly prefer Mrs to Miss, even though I do not like how titles make a distinction between married and unmarried women. There is the cultural reality that marriage still makes a difference in a person's (especially women's standing - or at least it is perceived this way in many contexts. I've noticed this in the context of my interactions with family members, church and various other contexts. It may not matter in our work context, in academia, but it matters outside of it, and so it's hard to ignore. That's probably why it's irksome to be addressed as Miss, especially by people who well *know* it's Mrs. I suspect Sara is not alone in thinking her marital status is not isolated from the rest of her. After all, I know plenty of female academics who change their name when they are married - the fact that their name changes sometimes causes trouble, e.g., it may be hard to trace that their earlier papers (under their maiden name) were written by the same person.

You might be interested in the blogpost on infant directed speech across cultures. In the comments section are lots of references http://www.cognitionandculture.net/home/blog/75-alexs-blog/2363-whats-the-point-of-talking-to-your-child What I'm wondering about is the emphasis many of these reports place on infant-directed speech, versus speech directed to older children (for instance in the study you cite). It could, of course, be that early differences in infant-directed speech make such an enormous difference that they later never catch up. However, the fact that the performance gap widens over time seems to me also consistent with evidence that more affluent parents might be making a difference by continuing to talk to their kids well beyond infancy. I notice especially these last 3 years that our daughter (who's 9.5 now) seems to benefit enormously from dinner conversations. We talk about all sorts of things, such as climate change, politics, religion, astrophysics. For instance, we were recently discussing why people fall in love. I gave 2 explanations to consider: Plato's creation myth as recounted by Aristophanes in Symposium and the evolutionary hypothesis (i.e., romantic love, both homosexual and heterosexual had multiple adaptive advantages). Alas, it turns out that the Platonic creation myth seems to have stuck whereas the evolutionary hypotheses did not... Harris' book demonstrates, I think, that we should be wary in overemphasizing the first 5 years or infancy as *the* period par excellence when learning takes place. Kids start learning early, but it's a continued development.

Alan, Jasper and James: thank you for these comments. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly how extra-philosophical interests contribute to philosophy - probably often indirectly, except perhaps with some fields where there is a close match between the activity and the philosophical discipline, such as philosophy of art. I don't know if philosophy of art is exceptional in that respect. Anecdotally, I know several philosophers of art who are also engaged in various forms of art-making, mostly they are practicing musicians, some are visual artists. But perhaps philosophy of art is not so exceptional, as, for instance, philosophers of science I know will typically read works in the scientific disciplines of their interest, or even scientific works far outside of their domain (Sylvia's example comes to mind). There are solid data (PhilPapers and a survey I conducted a while ago) that most philosophers of religion are religious, and many I know are practicing, e.g., being churchwardens, lay preachers, observing Jewish customs, etc. It would be interesting to know whether political philosophers are more politically active.

Matthew: do you have the sources for this? I think that the instrumental value of such activities should not be the whole raison d'être of doing them. I'm also wondering if people could realistically engage in time-consuming hobbies just for the sake of improving their work, especially in the long term. Playing a musical instrument regularly requires continued commitment (I try to play 15-30 mins a day), and I wonder if I could do it if it were solely or even mainly for the sake of being a philosopher (in that sense, it would not be very time-efficient, as I have only used some insights from musical practice in one paper up to now, and even there, indirectly). To take an imperfect analogy: many people start exercising for health benefit, but it seems that those who stick with it in the long run also derive some non-instrumental pleasure from, e.g., a daily running routine.

I wouldn't go as far as to put weight on one's hobbies in the tenure file. That would create all sorts of unwelcome biases, e.g., promoting some form of elitism in cultural tastes. But I do think that some activities *indirectly* related to philosophy might be given some positive weight, e.g., a philosophically-inspired novel written by a philosopher. I know this is already the case now in some departments, for instance, a department I visited last year had a recent tenure decision for a faculty member, where her published poetry was part of the evaluation. It think the focus is too narrowly on academic publication in philosophy journals and books. The obsession for high-prestige venues (top philosophy journals with tiny acceptance rates in particular) goes at the expense of work where philosophy can genuinely engage with the wider academic and non-academic world. Even multidisciplinary work is not valued highly in many departments. For instance, evaluation for promotion and tenure at my current institution (Leuven) is based on a definite list of journals and academic publishers - if your publication is not within those venues, e.g., because it's interdisciplinary - it simply doesn't count.

DMF: I think a change in climate could be accomplished in several ways. First, we should evaluate broader engagement with the wider cultural, political etc context more positively in tenure/promotion decisions than is the case now. Now, these sorts of activities don't seem to count at all - if anything, they put the person in a suspicious light. I once heard the advice that if you want to get tenure, some hobbies are more acceptable than others: sky-diving, gourmet cooking, or hiking in exotic locations are good, but writing fiction or poetry, or blogging are not so good, because they arouse the suspicion that you could have spent that time more productively, i.e., writing serious, publishable stuff. Someone I know told me her blogging (for a non-philosophy, wide-audience blog) was actually held against her in a decision for promotion, so this is not a hypothetical issue. Second, it is now rarely the case that philosophers write from a first-person perspective, invoking personal experiences (at least it is rarely the case in analytic philosophy, the tradition I am most familiar with). Writing more philosophy from that perspective would increase its relevance. I am thinking for instance about books like this one by Howard Wettstein (http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Philosophy/?view=usa&ci=9780199841363) which explicitly draws on the author's personal religious experiences and his own religious views. But it remains rare, especially in journal papers. Our profession encourages a dispassionate 'view from nowhere' attitude that diminishes its overall scope and potential.

Hi Sylvia: I think that it is indeed not so much keeping up with the literature, *by itself* that diverts us too much from new creative insight, but rather, that it becomes problematic if keeping up with the literature becomes only thing we can manage on restrictive time budgets. Given trade-offs in time and energy investment, I think it's best to keep up to some reasonable extent with the literature, and keeping some time explicitly for things quite far removed from one's specialism. In a way, refereeing practices might contribute to why some people spend too much energy and time keeping up (e.g., "The author did not address X's concern"; "Y has written a paper that anticipates this objection etc").

Catarina: part of the problem seems to be that *not* everyone is overburdened. I talked recently to a colleague who is a lot senior than me, and I was sort of complaining about the several referee requests sitting on my desk, when he said "Oh, cool, I've never been asked to referee. I'd like to do that. How can I become a referee?' - this was someone who was already for 10 years or so a full-time faculty member. It seems to me that the pool of referees is rather small, and that people who are asked to referee are typically also those who are asked to evaluate grant proposals. Typically, these are relatively junior people with an established track record of writing. The only cap that you can put here on effort, it seems, is the cap you impose yourself (declining a referee request). I don't immediately see a feasible way to do this in a centralized way, unfortunately.

I agree that the calculation 20% success rate = 80% wasted time is an unsophisticated and incorrect way to measure the investment returns of grant proposals. But the bigger picture stands: I think that the process as it is now implemented in most countries is terribly inefficient. Even if we assume a strong correlation between the quality of proposals and their success rate, I argue that (1) a less cumbersome procedure, e.g., on the basis of a substantial abstract alone would be more efficient, both for grant authors and for referees - after all, we know that things like timeline, projected output, and 'impact' are bollocks most of the time anyway, (2) a double-blind procedure would be fairer, as it would guard against things like prestige bias and gender bias, both of which are amply illustrated in the current system (3) the grant system now, especially in Britain, creates a Matthew effect: people with a past track record of success in grants will of course be in a better position to ask new grants - they've had flourishing research groups. This is entirely compatible with a high r^2 between quality and success, but I do not think it particularly fair - if you get into the boat early on, you are propelled into future success, if not, then the chances become substantially smaller.

Han: I think it depends on the research culture. In Great Britain, grants are often written by people who are at least of the level of lecturer (equivalent assistant professor or UD), and often more senior, i.e., by established faculty members. The grant is often large, meant to accommodate several postdocs and PhD students, who are then recruited using the normal job search channels. But in Belgium, where I've done most of my research, the scenario you describe is not uncommon: FWO projects typically employ only one PhD student (full time) or a postdoc at 75%. One could argue that in such cases grant writing is less of a waste of time, after all, the tenured faculty do not need to spend much time at it (and in Belgium, they typically do not). But even then, I wonder if our grantmaking system is the most optimal, and I say this as someone who has subsisted on grants pretty much her entire career. My stay in the UK is funded by an FWO mobility grant, and my current postdoc position is funded by a personal postdoctoral FWO grant. As Catarina points out, the time investment is considerable both on the part of the applicants and the evaluators. The grantmaking agency demand that you specify in great detail the quantifiable outputs and timetable. Now, nearing the end of my grant I can say that although the overall aims were achieved, I did not follow the timetable at all, and my output is not at all what I thought it would be. I have a book under review I never thought I would write, and several papers that were also not projected. In a sense, this is not surprising: as you do research, you get different ideas. So it seems to me that the mandatory fields on projected output and timetable are a total waste of time. You write something you simply know can go any way. Second, there is now also in most grantmaking schemes a field on impact on the wider society, economic applicability etc. I find it very hard to write something suitable in such fields. I've heard other people who were quite cynical: they just write anything that will appeal. To give an non-fictional example: an archaeologist I know who works in the UK put in a large grant proposal on the use of raw materials and variability in stone tool morphology in Britain. Very interesting proposal, but where is the impact? He devised a whole spiel about how stone tool resources are finite, and how the use of it by hominins can say something for us and our finite resources, such as oil, leading to better management of non-renewable energy. He said 'That's of course bollocks, I don't for a moment believe that our research can shed any light on that question, but you've got to put something, and the environment always scores well'. So, again, filling out this part of a grant proposal is often a pure waste of time (I am not denying that some projects do have practical applicability, but I find it problematic that *all* projects need to devise, no matter how contrived, some form of immediate societal impact!) So I would opt for a system that is a lot less detailed and cumbersome: just fund postdocs on the basis of their published work as predocs (most of them have publications anyway, at least in the Netherlands and Belgium), or if a project is essential, make it small and non-time consuming (a big abstract outlining the aims and approach that will be used should be enough). That should also put less of a time burden on evaluators.