Academic habits that get on my tits

I will, of course, do all of these, once the urgent need to publish and (thus) attract research money kicks in. But for now…

• Debating the number of angels on the head of a pin
• Asking trivial/banal questions that are answerable
• Counting things that can be counted without ever wondering if they are things that really exist or actually matter
• Butterfly collecting and ignoring the possibility of “black swans” (Failing to test the hypothesis)
• Answering questions in a very long-winded and evasive way (and talking out the clock, and thus failing to answer the most difficult question- the solution is to answer in brief and then put a longer answer on your website!)