What do people think of the tenure system in the sciences?

I don't see how a modest financial penalty for firing a prof would change the evaluation process in any way - it might make things even more politicized and vulnerable to malign outside influence, actually.

If it's just money, and you are evaluating therefore the economic cost of the man rather than any kind of merit, in step the corporate donors and endowing billionaires and political Party funding organizers with strings on their grants - the Scaifes and Kochs and Cheneys and so forth could easily make such calculations break to their interests. Being able to get rid of inconvenient intellectuals merely by covering a firing penalty somehow (or threatening an even greater deprivation) would be Rove's fond desire - he can arrange that, no problem. The current campaigns to discredit such people despite their respectable status cost tens, maybe hundreds, of millions a year.

Currently, after all, a prof can be put out to pasture merely by absorbing his salary - tenure is no claim on role.

 

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Yes but university must pay his replacement too, so if short of funds, it may just keep the deadwood on the staff.

The main fault of the current tenure system is that it keeps deadwood on the staff. I am trying to make it cost less than twice a profs salary to get a productive replacement on the staff instead of pay for two (the deadwood prof just sitting in his office collecting salary as he has tenure and the new younger hire, hard working doing his job - teaching and research) Let the deadwood sleep at home instead of at his university desk with only the cost of twice his Social Security to the university, not a full salary.

I agree that here are people of means who could and would, if allowed, selectively clear out professors with whom they strong disagree. They could do that now but can't if the university has any integrity - I don't see how keeping the tenure or replacing tenure with my plan makes any difference in this. Universities are always in need of contributed funds so perhaps this does happen at times (and still would also if my suggestion were to replace tenure). That is not the problem I am trying to solve. The problem I am interested in is how to (1) get rid of tenured dead wood* without (2) making capable, but different, prof fear for their lively hoods.

(1) obviously requires ending tenure
(2) obviously requires replacing the terminated tenure with a better alternative.

 

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