4 ms·

Lying by omission seems to be widely accepted now as necessary and expected in order achieve tenure, secure funding, etc. I find it abhorrent. If you go back an

by smaddox 10y ago

Lying by omission seems to be widely accepted now as necessary and expected in order achieve tenure, secure funding, etc. I find it abhorrent. If you go back and read experimental papers from the 1800's, before science became an industry, they are full of detailed methods (including where to purchase items), pitfalls encountered along the way, and potential detractors from the main result. Not so today. Today, it seems to be all about selling a result that may or may not be significant.

projektir 10y ago
It's a society-wide problem that is caused by competition and status seeking. Pretty much everything is optimizing for "winning", whatever that means, instead of doing things correctly, conscientiously, and carefully. The latter will often make you "lose", and there's no system rewarding you for it besides an internal one. Then there's nothing left for people to do but try to "win", because resources are scarce. The more you optimize for "winning", the more nasty your methods get, because there's always something you can sacrifice, until nothing is left. Another unseen side effect of this is that a lot of people see this, combined with the low returns from science, and decide to go do something else, because if they are going to put up with the garbage they can as well earn more money doing it. And some among them then realize that they can have a greater effect by generating billions of dollars and then using them on whatever they want, instead of wasting time in a lab and asking for scraps from the government. Untangling this requires a complete mentality shift.
- internaut 10y ago
  > Untangling this requires a complete mentality shift. I agree with this. > It's a society-wide problem that is caused by competition and status seeking. I don't agree with this. I agree that competition and status seeking can lead to bad outcomes. However this is wholly about how competition and status seeking are channeled. They are instincts, they come naturally. Clearly in the present order they are not channeled in ways that lead to superior or interesting outcomes since mediocrity is everywhere.
  - projektir 10y ago
    > However this is wholly about how competition and status seeking are channeled. You can't truly channel competition anywhere because it's always routed to itself. Competition implies a provider of gifts and those who chase those gifts. The provider will always use faulty proxies to determine who to provide to, thus becoming disproportionately important to the process. Acquiring the gifts is always disproportionately more important than anything else. Status is one such gift, with no redeeming value. Competition is always about the agent that is winning, and the provider that arbitrarily bestows prizes. That is where the focus lies by definition - the objective of a competitor is to eliminate all others, not to produce anything of value. Science should be about the results, and should bow to no provider. > They are instincts, they come naturally. A lot of bad things are caused by instincts that come naturally. That's actually specifically why I pointed those two out: they're natural, and they're extremely dangerous and we should always be aware of them creeping up and keep them in check. Instead, we created whole institutions to worship them. > Clearly in the present order they are not channeled in ways that lead to superior or interesting outcomes since mediocrity is everywhere. The "mediocrity is everywhere" thinking is part of the problem, as it drives everyone to worry about how "mediocre" they look and rush after the best thing ever all the time, instead of calming down and doing the right things. Publishing a failing study is mediocre. Helping people in need is mediocre. Doing a little bit of fitness to keep yourself healthy is mediocre. Yet, that is exactly what we need more of. Mediocrity will always be everywhere because it's a mathematical fact - most people are in the middle. So, yes, it's everywhere. That's tautological. I think you were trying to say something else.
    - internaut 10y ago
      > Competition implies a provider of gifts and those who chase those gifts. The provider will always use faulty proxies to determine who to provide to, thus becoming disproportionately important to the process. Acquiring the gifts is always disproportionately more important than anything else. I think we are on the same page with respect to the dangers. I am reminded of the experiments in which rats are getting hits of dopamine. What is it called? Behavioral conditioning? Skinner conditioning? Very simple, but very powerful. And this I think is the specter that haunts Science/Education. Sheer force of collective habit maintains the status quo. There is lots of evidence for 'work' (even workaholicism) but paradoxically diminishing results. I am reminded of those students who write down everything the lecturer says in class but don't have the time to understand what the lecturer is trying to get across. > You can't truly channel competition anywhere because it's always routed to itself. Here we sort of disagree. I agree that it is potentially an uncontrollable positive feedback loop but I think competition (and also our sense of fairness, demotism, voting, equality) can be channeled. To use an analogy, these instincts we have are like Water or Electricity. Dangerous but controllable to great effect. The goal of good governance is to 'traffic shape' these forces into productive causes. Competition in the wild is simply Hobbesian violence, one man against the other. It requires the halter of a market with its price system and exchanges to be funneled productively. There are huge problems of course but we at least know a halter actually exists. What I am calling 'fairness' in its natural state is a powerful raw instinct to enforce conformity and uniformity among the tribe members. There is an obvious biological connection to these instincts, to our genetics, our genes in their voting blocks trying to spread their influence. This is known in biology as R selection, where the system is optimizing for volume (the overall hypothesis is called R-k selection). In my opinion there exists no 'halter' (as of yet, but I hold out hope) for fairness. I do not believe a proper mechanism has yet been invented by humankind. Yes humans build institutions to control it, like standardized education, democracy, republics, but I am unconvinced as to their strength against a sudden surge in the tide of popular feeling. Sooner or later, like the rise of the Communists, brute strength wins out over elegant attempts to moderate, basically mob rule followed shortly by blood rule with tyrants. Year Zero. A Reset. It has happened countless times in history. Democracy leads to entropy. Competition has the potential to take us to Moloch. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ Basically you either need to choose your poison, or we need to come up with a better system. I currently err on the side of Moloch, because it is a slower death than the alternative. > A lot of bad things are caused by instincts that come naturally. That's actually specifically why I pointed those two out: they're natural, and they're extremely dangerous and we should always be aware of them creeping up and keep them in check. > Instead, we created whole institutions to worship them. That's about the size of it, yes. > The "mediocrity is everywhere" thinking is part of the problem, as it drives everyone to worry about how "mediocre" they look and rush after the best thing ever all the time, instead of calming down and doing the right things. Publishing a failing study is mediocre. Helping people in need is mediocre. Doing a little bit of fitness to keep yourself healthy is mediocre. Yet, that is exactly what we need more of. > I think you were trying to say something else. This is interesting, thank you. You're quite right that over-optimizing is a threat (Moloch) but I shall reformulate my complaint here. Mediocrity is a threat (Entropy), but, and I feel this is important, if we have enough fields or subfields of exploration, avenues of research then Mediocrity basically loses its meaning. The division of labour allows everybody to potentially be a winner. It does not eliminate average results but it disperses them over a large area, which should mean net progress across the board is higher. Does that make sense? > Mediocrity will always be everywhere because it's a mathematical fact - most people are in the middle. So, yes, it's everywhere. That's tautological. We all know smart people achieving mediocre results (via Molochian competitions). We all know not-as-smart people achieving, if not success in the sense of being on the first page of a top ten Google search results, achieving success in their local maximum. In my opinion the second is in some sense smarter than the first because they are better adapted to their niche, they have a better foundation on which to ultimately progress. I suppose I could summarize my feeling on the subject by saying I care more about increasing the whole population's IQ (or other metric) by 1 point, than about collecting the 'cream of the crop' and curating talent, because although the second initially appears most impressive, the truth is that the whole network benefits much more from the first.
internaut 10y ago
Yes but why are scientists in the position of selling? Why is that their position in whatever this negotiation is? First I should explain I believe Science to be a special type of Education, and that by addressing the specific here on HN we are not attacking the general problem. There is nothing complex about this subject. It is just bad governance leading to institutional weakness. Let us look at long term trends, since that is what ultimately matters. In 1900 to a first approximation there existed 1000 physicsts on earth. A century later that number is larger by a factor of (at least) 1000x. Yet I wouldn't claim physics has produced 10x the results, let alone 1000. This requires explanation. I am not ganging up on physics, the problem is across all the sciences. This means either of two possibles. 1. There exists diminishing returns even in the discovery of new ideas themselves. We should be seeing an explosion of new fields of science, for every 1 field in 1900 we should see 100 new ones today but we do not. 2. Science as an institution has gradually succumbed to some kind of rot from within. I submit to you it looks like the first but is actually the second proposition which is the truth. Now I will come clear. It is democracy that has accomplished this. This is because public money must be tethered to some kind of measurable outcome, an easily understood metric, for future flows of monetary assistance. The causality goes like this. Public finances must be justified in the development of Education and Science. Bureaucrats are in essence the farmers of students or scientists in a similar way to cash crops or Prussian forestry management. More units, more volume equal more success. Thus, the limits on the network of bureaucracy are artificial limits on the potential for growth. Going 'wild' is not tolerated even if it would lead to more interesting outcomes (which is what we want!). It is seen as expensive when it is nothing of the sort. The resultant output is the mass production of mediocrity. The larger the apparatus, the more all encompassing it becomes until its standards and objectives become universal. Its gravity even influences the trajectory of systems outside of it e.g. privately funded research due to its incredible size (because those privately funded researchers were inoculated into conformity with a public system or a private system which a curriculum based on the public model). All that I have said should be testable. Suppose you have the following arrangement. 1. Students or Scientists with independent source of income. We may have a filter for motivation but that's about all. 2. Educational assistance which is funded through present and former students/scientists. 3. There does not exist a standardized curriculum or set of objectives. It is all blue sky. Any resultant consensus on common topic areas is by choice. Interdisciplinary activity would explode because the subjects are not focused on a 'path', which necessarily distorts and cuts down on the number of potential possibilities. Then I am convinced you shall see a thousand flowers bloom. Edit: The more 'elite' a university is, the more it resembles the arrangement I describe. It is undeniable that the best parts of the Educational system are the most aristocratic, while the worst are the most demotic.

by smaddox 10y ago

projektir 10y ago

It's a society-wide problem that is caused by competition and status seeking. Pretty much everything is optimizing for "winning", whatever that means, instead of doing things correctly, conscientiously, and carefully. The latter will often make you "lose", and there's no system rewarding you for it besides an internal one. Then there's nothing left for people to do but try to "win", because resources are scarce. The more you optimize for "winning", the more nasty your methods get, because there's always something you can sacrifice, until nothing is left. Another unseen side effect of this is that a lot of people see this, combined with the low returns from science, and decide to go do something else, because if they are going to put up with the garbage they can as well earn more money doing it. And some among them then realize that they can have a greater effect by generating billions of dollars and then using them on whatever they want, instead of wasting time in a lab and asking for scraps from the government. Untangling this requires a complete mentality shift.

internaut 10y ago
> Untangling this requires a complete mentality shift. I agree with this. > It's a society-wide problem that is caused by competition and status seeking. I don't agree with this. I agree that competition and status seeking can lead to bad outcomes. However this is wholly about how competition and status seeking are channeled. They are instincts, they come naturally. Clearly in the present order they are not channeled in ways that lead to superior or interesting outcomes since mediocrity is everywhere.
- projektir 10y ago
  > However this is wholly about how competition and status seeking are channeled. You can't truly channel competition anywhere because it's always routed to itself. Competition implies a provider of gifts and those who chase those gifts. The provider will always use faulty proxies to determine who to provide to, thus becoming disproportionately important to the process. Acquiring the gifts is always disproportionately more important than anything else. Status is one such gift, with no redeeming value. Competition is always about the agent that is winning, and the provider that arbitrarily bestows prizes. That is where the focus lies by definition - the objective of a competitor is to eliminate all others, not to produce anything of value. Science should be about the results, and should bow to no provider. > They are instincts, they come naturally. A lot of bad things are caused by instincts that come naturally. That's actually specifically why I pointed those two out: they're natural, and they're extremely dangerous and we should always be aware of them creeping up and keep them in check. Instead, we created whole institutions to worship them. > Clearly in the present order they are not channeled in ways that lead to superior or interesting outcomes since mediocrity is everywhere. The "mediocrity is everywhere" thinking is part of the problem, as it drives everyone to worry about how "mediocre" they look and rush after the best thing ever all the time, instead of calming down and doing the right things. Publishing a failing study is mediocre. Helping people in need is mediocre. Doing a little bit of fitness to keep yourself healthy is mediocre. Yet, that is exactly what we need more of. Mediocrity will always be everywhere because it's a mathematical fact - most people are in the middle. So, yes, it's everywhere. That's tautological. I think you were trying to say something else.
  - internaut 10y ago
    > Competition implies a provider of gifts and those who chase those gifts. The provider will always use faulty proxies to determine who to provide to, thus becoming disproportionately important to the process. Acquiring the gifts is always disproportionately more important than anything else. I think we are on the same page with respect to the dangers. I am reminded of the experiments in which rats are getting hits of dopamine. What is it called? Behavioral conditioning? Skinner conditioning? Very simple, but very powerful. And this I think is the specter that haunts Science/Education. Sheer force of collective habit maintains the status quo. There is lots of evidence for 'work' (even workaholicism) but paradoxically diminishing results. I am reminded of those students who write down everything the lecturer says in class but don't have the time to understand what the lecturer is trying to get across. > You can't truly channel competition anywhere because it's always routed to itself. Here we sort of disagree. I agree that it is potentially an uncontrollable positive feedback loop but I think competition (and also our sense of fairness, demotism, voting, equality) can be channeled. To use an analogy, these instincts we have are like Water or Electricity. Dangerous but controllable to great effect. The goal of good governance is to 'traffic shape' these forces into productive causes. Competition in the wild is simply Hobbesian violence, one man against the other. It requires the halter of a market with its price system and exchanges to be funneled productively. There are huge problems of course but we at least know a halter actually exists. What I am calling 'fairness' in its natural state is a powerful raw instinct to enforce conformity and uniformity among the tribe members. There is an obvious biological connection to these instincts, to our genetics, our genes in their voting blocks trying to spread their influence. This is known in biology as R selection, where the system is optimizing for volume (the overall hypothesis is called R-k selection). In my opinion there exists no 'halter' (as of yet, but I hold out hope) for fairness. I do not believe a proper mechanism has yet been invented by humankind. Yes humans build institutions to control it, like standardized education, democracy, republics, but I am unconvinced as to their strength against a sudden surge in the tide of popular feeling. Sooner or later, like the rise of the Communists, brute strength wins out over elegant attempts to moderate, basically mob rule followed shortly by blood rule with tyrants. Year Zero. A Reset. It has happened countless times in history. Democracy leads to entropy. Competition has the potential to take us to Moloch. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ Basically you either need to choose your poison, or we need to come up with a better system. I currently err on the side of Moloch, because it is a slower death than the alternative. > A lot of bad things are caused by instincts that come naturally. That's actually specifically why I pointed those two out: they're natural, and they're extremely dangerous and we should always be aware of them creeping up and keep them in check. > Instead, we created whole institutions to worship them. That's about the size of it, yes. > The "mediocrity is everywhere" thinking is part of the problem, as it drives everyone to worry about how "mediocre" they look and rush after the best thing ever all the time, instead of calming down and doing the right things. Publishing a failing study is mediocre. Helping people in need is mediocre. Doing a little bit of fitness to keep yourself healthy is mediocre. Yet, that is exactly what we need more of. > I think you were trying to say something else. This is interesting, thank you. You're quite right that over-optimizing is a threat (Moloch) but I shall reformulate my complaint here. Mediocrity is a threat (Entropy), but, and I feel this is important, if we have enough fields or subfields of exploration, avenues of research then Mediocrity basically loses its meaning. The division of labour allows everybody to potentially be a winner. It does not eliminate average results but it disperses them over a large area, which should mean net progress across the board is higher. Does that make sense? > Mediocrity will always be everywhere because it's a mathematical fact - most people are in the middle. So, yes, it's everywhere. That's tautological. We all know smart people achieving mediocre results (via Molochian competitions). We all know not-as-smart people achieving, if not success in the sense of being on the first page of a top ten Google search results, achieving success in their local maximum. In my opinion the second is in some sense smarter than the first because they are better adapted to their niche, they have a better foundation on which to ultimately progress. I suppose I could summarize my feeling on the subject by saying I care more about increasing the whole population's IQ (or other metric) by 1 point, than about collecting the 'cream of the crop' and curating talent, because although the second initially appears most impressive, the truth is that the whole network benefits much more from the first.

internaut 10y ago

Yes but why are scientists in the position of selling? Why is that their position in whatever this negotiation is? First I should explain I believe Science to be a special type of Education, and that by addressing the specific here on HN we are not attacking the general problem. There is nothing complex about this subject. It is just bad governance leading to institutional weakness. Let us look at long term trends, since that is what ultimately matters. In 1900 to a first approximation there existed 1000 physicsts on earth. A century later that number is larger by a factor of (at least) 1000x. Yet I wouldn't claim physics has produced 10x the results, let alone 1000. This requires explanation. I am not ganging up on physics, the problem is across all the sciences. This means either of two possibles. 1. There exists diminishing returns even in the discovery of new ideas themselves. We should be seeing an explosion of new fields of science, for every 1 field in 1900 we should see 100 new ones today but we do not. 2. Science as an institution has gradually succumbed to some kind of rot from within. I submit to you it looks like the first but is actually the second proposition which is the truth. Now I will come clear. It is democracy that has accomplished this. This is because public money must be tethered to some kind of measurable outcome, an easily understood metric, for future flows of monetary assistance. The causality goes like this. Public finances must be justified in the development of Education and Science. Bureaucrats are in essence the farmers of students or scientists in a similar way to cash crops or Prussian forestry management. More units, more volume equal more success. Thus, the limits on the network of bureaucracy are artificial limits on the potential for growth. Going 'wild' is not tolerated even if it would lead to more interesting outcomes (which is what we want!). It is seen as expensive when it is nothing of the sort. The resultant output is the mass production of mediocrity. The larger the apparatus, the more all encompassing it becomes until its standards and objectives become universal. Its gravity even influences the trajectory of systems outside of it e.g. privately funded research due to its incredible size (because those privately funded researchers were inoculated into conformity with a public system or a private system which a curriculum based on the public model). All that I have said should be testable. Suppose you have the following arrangement. 1. Students or Scientists with independent source of income. We may have a filter for motivation but that's about all. 2. Educational assistance which is funded through present and former students/scientists. 3. There does not exist a standardized curriculum or set of objectives. It is all blue sky. Any resultant consensus on common topic areas is by choice. Interdisciplinary activity would explode because the subjects are not focused on a 'path', which necessarily distorts and cuts down on the number of potential possibilities. Then I am convinced you shall see a thousand flowers bloom. Edit: The more 'elite' a university is, the more it resembles the arrangement I describe. It is undeniable that the best parts of the Educational system are the most aristocratic, while the worst are the most demotic.