===== 🎭 Academic Theater =====

**Academic theater** refers to the performance of scholarship for appearances rather than substance.  
It describes academic activity that mimics the form of rigorous inquiry — papers, talks, titles, committees — but lacks real intellectual or clinical impact.

In other words:

> *The imitation of academic productivity, driven by optics, metrics, or politics rather than truth-seeking.*

==== 🧠 Examples in neurosurgery or academia ====

  * Presenting flashy results at conferences with no follow-up or real-world application  
  * Writing papers to fill a CV, not to change practice or advance understanding  
  * Using complex jargon to obscure the lack of meaningful insight  
  * Forming committees or task forces that exist to be seen, not to solve problems

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> **Academic theater is when the form of science survives but its soul is gone.**