How to slow down scientific progress, according to Leo Szilard(rootsofprogress.org) |
How to slow down scientific progress, according to Leo Szilard(rootsofprogress.org) |
I think the biggest problem facing science right now is the scale at which it is occurring. My field does not have this problem, but I can't imagine what it's like trying to stay on top of the literature in e.g. medical sciences. Paper writing and peer review work at much smaller scales - there are order hundreds scientist in my field and I think it's functioning just fine. For fields with thousands and 10s of thousands of active researchers, I think there needs to be a different way to vet and organize information. I don't know what that is exactly but it might look something like twitter (can't believe I'm writing this!). On second thought, maybe it looks more like HN!
The misalignment of incentives can be problematic as well, but arguably, not the biggest problem.
Outside of academia, where you just do shit to see what happens, you can get through maybe a dozen different "idea iterations" in a month, and within a short span of time you've really got an understanding of what does and doesn't work.
In academia, where everything has to be justified, it seems like it takes decades to reach the same level of understanding that you could get independently in months.
Of course, because your're more methodical and precise you can much more certain that you haven't made as many errors, but as a human being who doesnt know what the hell you're doing you'll almost always learn more from playing with something spontaneously 50 different ways than carefully planning 5 approaches.
I feel like science as a whole would be much more effective if we split it into two separate tasks: trying to wrap our heads around new things, and then only after this has done do we begin to formalise things. The current model of pretending we know how to approach new things from day one just seems to stifle progress and prevent bad paradigms from dying.
[1] I left my PhD due to complete frustration with the system after first year - kept getting pushed towards the goal of "going through the motions" and adding to the pile of polished turds that is decoding algorithms for brain-computer interfaces. Still bitter about it 6 years later, probably will be until the day I die.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/747-if-we-knew-what-it-was-...
As any one in here knows from troubleshooting complex systems, the first seemingly sensible idea is usually wrong. To understand, you need many ideas, and to systematically update your model and disprove each hypothesis, using the evidence, and the build up in your intuition, to tune your next hypothesis. Science is more about hacking than it is about getting a well-written paper past a committee. The feedback loop shouldn't be slowed down with a political step.
This is true, and we're reliant on the reviewers being in touch with reality, which I gather is not always the case, though in my (limited) experience it has been. Writing proposals does feel different than writing papers and I do worry about getting too divorced from reality. I endeavor to stick to nonfiction!
The slowing of the feedback loop is only necessary if you wish to fund your work from sources that require it. Self funding through other means would have advantages.
I happen to think it's actually more insidious. Science kind of requires the personality type that is mentally or emotionally or socially defective in that they will dogmatically stand by the pursuit of truth. By channeling people into playing the parlor game, you either "turn" dogmatic truthseekers or burn them out and kick them into something else where you might have to sell your soul but at least it pays, like writing code that serves ads. The people left at the top are less good at being scientists, and then they're on the review committees, etc.
Szilard is not cynical enough, though. There comes a point where for political reasons you dump too much money into a field where there really isn't enough expertise to effectively spend that money (California institute of regenerative medicine comes to mind). That's when you really get in trouble
OTOH, life scientists I have talked to or worked with (both in basic & medical research) seem to be writing proposals all the time, and that just seems really unpleasant in all sorts of ways, on top of problems that have been discussed here ad nauseum.
> First of all, the best scientists would be removed from their laboratories and kept busy on committees passing on applications for funds
Convince talented technical innovators that the best way they can apply themselves is to become a 'business person'"; then, talk to VCs and feel important by spending a lot of money instead of building something
> Secondly, the scientific workers in need of funds would concentrate on problems which were considered promising and were pretty certain to lead to publishable results
Do whatever VCs think is hot
> For a few years there might be a great increase in scientific output
The last 15 years?
> There would be fashions. Those who followed the fashion would get grants. Those who wouldn’t would not, and pretty soon they would learn to follow the fashion, too.
Yep.
* Science is progressing too fast * Science is progressing too slow with not enough breakthroughs * The barrier to publish is too high and is wrought with politics * There's too many papers published and we need a higher bar as not everyone is a genius * My research is important and deserves funding * Others research is trivial and they don't deserve funding * Committees suck, they do nothing, just gate-keep who gets money and there's politics involved * X research is trivial, shouldn't receive funding, someone has to stop this * The public should understand what we're doing research on * A lot of the research being published is being exaggerated in quality, difficulty and correctness
I guess it's no different than the conflicting views of any community. If there's no conflict, things get stale.
Have fashions taken over? What was science like before fashions took over?
The tyranny of the tenured elderly:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” ― Max Planck, Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers
Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34248858 - Jan 2023 (139 comments)
I think the slowdown in physics we are witnessing today has not much to do with this effect and more to do with pragmatic aspects like capitalism and the next order of magnitude in complexity that we need to master to make headway.
EDIT: clarity
Let's take a humanist approach and say the biggest problems humanity need to solve right now that we aren't doing enough on are life extension and energy generation/storage/distribution. Even 5 years ago, "AI" might've been on the list, but that seems to be booming with progress, and between CRISPR/mRNA we also seem to be making incredible progress on disease cure/prevention. Meanwhile, with longer lifespans, and cheap available energy who knows what other advances we might unlock.
OK, how do you proceed with maximizing scientific progress?
If the problem is that our civilization is using too much energy, the solution may not be fusion power. It might be redesigning suburbs (a design problem) or making people adaptable enough to live with one another in close quarters (a social problem) or making it easier to switch houses and move close to where they work (an economic problem).
The best spur to innovation is when you are getting results. Redefining the problem you solve is one way to get that.
Sure, it's like investing in stocks. But the incentives for VCs and academics are totally different. In academia, volume is a big part of prestige (not for everyone, of course, and to many people's dismay), whereas for VCs they're looking for that one huge disruptor, and are often willing to miss on hundreds to hit it.