That is why an original and true explanation is the gold standard of academic markets: the double helix, On the Origin of Species, Henri Pirenne's Mohammed and Charlemagne. A paper that claims that autism is caused by vaccination or terrorism by poverty is valuable only if it turns out to be a good explanation of autism or terrorism. If the world is not as described or predicted in the article or book, the research is worthless. The academy, too, is a market - a large one in which the value of any piece of research is ultimately secured against the world. In many cases, the buildings are no more than weed-covered lots or graphics in a developer's PowerPoint presentation. When creditors finally ask how much bonds secured by collateralised debt obligations backed by billions of dollars of mortgages are actually worth, the answer is 'what the buildings can be sold for'. The cause of the meltdown in global financial markets is obvious: leveraged trading in financial instruments that bear no relationship to the things they are supposed to be secured against. Tweet As with the banks that crashed at the onset of the global financial crisis, so the academic market cannot hide its toxic debt for ever, writes Philip Gerrans* This commentary on the state of the humanities was published earlier this month in the Times Higher Education.

Bubble trouble prizes normal