WHY ARE WE DOING PERSONAL RESEARCH?

By Ph.D. Igor Bobin & Ph.D. Natalia Petrovskaya

Once upon a time, when we were still studying in graduate school, at one of the workshops-trainings in psychology, we expressed our key idea in which we see the main condition for our creative implementation as scientists: "That we do not want to have bosses!" Then this statement of ours caused surprise among graduate students and professors of that country, which is not completely free from totalitarianism (not free in their own heads first of all): "How is it without bosses?" Then we ourselves did not fully understand why this idea was important for us, we just felt like that, and this statement organically burst out. Later we fully understood it, and this became our credo for all our scientific activity.

Indeed, the head, scientific adviser and spiritual guru is needed only by a novice young scientist. On the contrary, a made scientist should have neither leaders nor authorities.

Only one truth is credible for a real scientist as for any creative person.

Of course, we will be opposed by the multi-member voices of scientists from numerous universities, research institutes, R&D centers, etc.: "How then can a scientist build a career?" But if we turn to the fountainhead with the question "What is a true scientist?" then we will see such signs of a real scientist, they are well known from classical philosophy:

⦁ A sincere desire to comprehend the truth (Without substituting the goals of cognition for a career, status, etc. Without this one point, there is no scientist);

⦁ Non-conformism (Independence from other people's opinions, from "likes", fashion trends);

⦁ Cosmopolitanism (Independence from the interests of a country, religious or national group, region, university, research institute, department, scientific school, etc.);

⦁ High competence in their field. Wide scientific interests (Ability to independently learn the truth, that is, to solve key problems and draw conclusions at the interfaces between sciences. The ability to prove the correctness of their judgments by rigorous calculations for himself, not by voting);

⦁ Openness of knowledge (Ability to openly and in a clear language to share acquired knowledge with the whole world, transfer his own knowledge to other areas, and not hide knowledge in "closed" journals);

⦁ High responsibility (Ability to be fully personally responsible for the results);

⦁ High morality (The desire to increase good in the world, not to increase evil, not to participate in lies);

⦁ Self-restraint (The desire to avoid excesses).

We ourselves sincerely try to adhere to these principles, and this inevitably led us from the university to the independent science.


Indeed, transferring these listed categories to real life, we see that a researcher at a university or research institute (if he is an organic and integral element of this hierarchical structure, not a dissident) can no longer automatically be a true scientist. It has other goals and objectives.

This is an employee, performer, teacher, administrator, manager, leader, city man of science, anyone, but NOT SCIENTIST in the original antique sense of the word.

Any career sets almost insurmountable boundaries for genuine scientific activity; any voting on a scientific issue immediately obscures the truth with the opinion of the majority (usually mediocre). For a long time (tens of years) we were and worked in such large teams in different qualities, including university top management (administration, rector's office) and we personally know the pros and cons.

Such deeply structured and regulated scientific teams as universities and research institutes in any country are characterized by:

⦁ High conformism (A necessary condition for a successful career. A researcher must take generally accepted points of view. If his opinion differs from the generally accepted one, contradicts the opinion of an official guru, he will inevitably become a dissident, even if his point of view is correct. This happened to us. Also there is great the influence of scientific fashion. They do not what is needed and important, but what is fashionable, and a career goes faster);

⦁ Researchers are not free to make independent decisions (Boss takes the money and poses impossible tasks for the researchers);

⦁ Serving the group interests (Sometimes this is directly related to participating in a lie. A great desire to give out wishful thinking, not yet begun as finished, etc.);

⦁ Incompetence of scientific employees as a whole, narrow specialization (Each individual highly specialized employee does not have the knowledge and skills sufficient to independently carry out a major scientific task. Therefore, a large team is needed. For the same reason, there is a fear of global problems, because employees do not understand, do not represent what the world needs and how to create it. There is no broad vision of the problem, wide scope. Large scientific teams are contradictory and slow in global tasks, them easier to solve particular problems: to count the bubbles and particles, etc.);

⦁ Collective “responsibility”, or rather, collective irresponsibility for results (Inevitable erosion of responsibility in a large highly specialized team, which is very convenient for managers and employees);

⦁ Low morality (Replacing morality with the interests of the collective and work ethic, cynicism, appeal to the laws of wildlife: "The Law of the Jungle", "Food Chain", etc. The unprincipled career building even to the detriment of scientific results);

⦁ Scientific feudalism (Organically derived from the medieval origin of universities and carefully preserved. This is manifested in everything: external attributes, names, charters, traditions and mentality. "... This is my department (chair)!"; "... The honour of the department obliges...! ". This also implies the clan nature of universities);

⦁ Clanism (Groups of official scientific feudal gurus and their vassals. They operate at a university or research institute for life. They are fed at the expense of serf post-docs, graduate students and students. Hence, there is a constant struggle of clans for their privileged position, which takes away the main forces and time. Science here is deeply secondary);

⦁ Great connections between universities and the elite (Due to the need for elite children to study. Hence the prestige of a career at the university, much is forgiven for the university. Apparently the main role of universities is educational, slightly covered by scientific romance);

⦁ Priority of educational activities before scientific at universities (Lectures and exams are public and it cannot be cancelled, but the quality of research is difficult to verify);

⦁ Closed knowledge (They hide their articles in "closed" journals (Why?), which not everyone can get to know. As a result, the same studies are often carried out in different countries, the scientific progress stalls);

⦁ Low material efficiency of scientific research as a minimum of the benefit/cost function (This follows from the natural interests of a large team to consume as much as possible in conditions of "unlimited" resources. Example: a large state corporation. It is very convenient for managers and employees of universities and research institutes and is very inconvenient for customers of scientific products).

What is the annual budget of a major famous university? Billion dollars or more? What great has the university issued in science this year? Almost nothing? However, as well last year, too (however, according to formal indicators in the reporting - everything is in order). The main thing is that articles in closed scientific journals are regularly printed; there are few who will see and check them. The fact is that it is unprofitable for a university, as a large social organism, to be especially prolific in science (research institute as well). He is fed by time. And the university is usually inclined to stretch time.

We, as personal researchers, have been free of all this for many years and do what we consider necessary and promising as well as a writer, artist or composer. We openly publish our results. The return to this serfdom of the university we see only in nightmares.
The effectiveness of our research is high. Motivation is excellent. You will ask why?

The high material efficiency of personal scientific research as a maximum of the benefit/cost function follows from the natural reflex of an individual person, to do as much as possible in conditions of limited resources, i.e. - thrift, as opposed to the wastefulness of anonymized large groups. Plus, motivation to work for yourself, not for extraneous (Examples: the building a family budget, a budget for a small or medium private company - they are always super-efficient).

Thus, our desire for personal research is not a whim, but the need to solve complex scientific problems, which in principle cannot be effectively solved in the cumbersome traditional scientific team (as we have shown) even with a gigantic budget.

We all know talented individuals who changed the world with their scientific and philosophical work (Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Leo Tolstoy, Nikola Tesla, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Grigori Perelman and many, many others). For us, they are ... no, not idols, but professional and moral guidelines in our creative scientific work.

We do not unequivocally affirm that universities and research institutes are very bad, and our personal research is excellent. Universities are not competitors to us. So different budgets and different tasks. However, in the world there are a huge number of complex scientific problems that are beyond the cumbersome and clumsy structure of the university and research institutes, but are gracefully solved by our scientific team.

Given our competence as scientists, creative freedom and relatively modest budget, the result of our personal scientific research is often stunning with its grandeur, global nature and practical significance for all of humanity, seriously.
We are ready to share our knowledge and skills with you!
Join us to make a breakthrough into the future with us!

Our websites here https://sites.google.com/site/concentrationofminerals/

Ph.D. Igor Bobin & Ph.D. Natalia Petrovskaya

08/30/2019