Consequences
I recently read an interesting article/letter/blog post about the state of education. It was especially interesting as a daughter of two teachers, and one who is friends with several. From what I have heard from my friends, this article rings, unfortunately, very very true. But from what I can tell growing up with teachers, it hasn't always been this way. My mom was known as a "hard" teacher...but she got results. Kids who deserved it, they would fail. She didn't fail them; they failed themselves by not doing the work, not putting in the effort, and not caring.
People too often lose sight of the ultimate goals of a project for more the immediate rewards that the system originally set up to reach those goals. However, those rewards have gotten corrupted along the way such that they no longer work efficiently to achieve those ultimate goals. This loss shows up in education where unearned grades becomes markers of success even as the children are performing well below grade level, as they are no longer being prepared for life. It shows up in science where the impetus to publish is so strong that junk is being published simply to boost a resume. Scientists put up papers with questionable results, or questionable relevancy, all the time, without critically asking themselves if it will actually contribute meaningfully to the scientific body of knowledge. They are not trying to be disingenuous, they are just playing along with the system so they can continue to do their work (i.e., continue to be funded), so that eventually they do produce something of worth.
Here is one of the quotes in the article linked above, that I really liked:
"Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, and understanding is not wisdom."
-- Clifford Stoll
People tend to stop at the "information" or "knowledge" steps. I would even settle for at least getting to "understanding".