Intellectual inbreeding

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In the world of academia, the process of intellectual inbreeding is an accusation of insularity, elitism and complacency. The practice of a university hiring its own graduates as professors is a primary example of intellectual inbreeding and is therefore usually avoided by most schools. The problem with this practice is that it reduces the possibility of new ideas coming in from outside sources, just as genetic inbreeding reduces the possibility of new genes entering in to a population.

Economists David Colander and Arjo Klamer, Ph.D. wrote a book entitled The Making of an Economist which researched the growing concern behind the methodology of academic teaching and the lowering numbers of PhD's in Economics granted annually in the United States. Colander-Klamer state the trends described shrinking number of economic professors teaching at the University level would result in intellectual inbreeding. According to the Commission on Graduate Education in Economics (COGEE), they recognize it as "a trend for emulation rather than diversification."

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