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This is something other commenters picked up on - but the tragedy of this is that in the current scientific climate, doing good, unglamorous solid science has n

by Fede_V 10y ago

This is something other commenters picked up on - but the tragedy of this is that in the current scientific climate, doing good, unglamorous solid science has nowhere near the payoff than coming up with feel-good theories and then marketing the shit out of them. Peter Thiel said that: "the political people who are nimble in the art of writing government grants have gradually displaced the eccentric and idiosyncratic people who typically make the best scientists. The eccentric university professor is a species that is going extinct fast" - and that's exactly right. Cuddy is a terrible scientist, but she's a fantastic communicator, an engaging speaker, and a great 'seller'. How do we fix this? Brian Nosek is doing some absolutely fantastic work on this, and I hope it picks up more traction, but I'd like to see the ecosystem around scientific communication seriously revamped. There are a few publications (the Economist and the Atlantic come to mind) that have excellent scientific writers, but things like TED or Malcom Gladwell's books are a blight upon science.

devoply 10y ago
Marketing has always won out over knowledge. It just took a bit of time for that sort of thing to catch up here. And I doubt that marketing through news publications is going to fix that. Human systems slowly accumulate entropy and eventually have to rebuilt from scratch. I don't think human systems can self-repair. There is too much vested interest from various parties to allow that to happen in human systems. And usually when that happens some other group that's doing the work better, say China, out competes the systems which are broken. I don't know if China suffers the same problem, they probably do. But whatever, this sort of behavior creates opportunity for others to move in that do the work better.
TheCowboy 10y ago
This article seems like it should have been flagged as part of political detox week, as it's promoting more emotional than useful discussions. I do think your first sentence has some truth, but I wouldn't use Thiel as a reference as it just seems to be an appeal to emotion. Is there any evidence backing up Thiel's assertion? It sounds like romanticizing the past and idealizing eccentricity. It's also begging the question that eccentric/idiosyncratic people make the best scientists.
- Fede_V 10y ago
  I don't think I should have said 'that's exactly right' - I should have said 'that's partially right'. The funding climate right now is very competitive, and the ability to obtain funds is more important than it's ever been. For another example, here is Peter Higgs (the guy who developed the theory that predicted the boson) discussing modern science: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-boson-academic-system https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-.... As far as quantitative data about trends in scientific funding - we have lots of data showing that the funding climate is the worse it's ever been, but I wouldn't even know how to quantitatively prove that being 'strategic' is more important now than it was in the past.
htrp 10y ago
Think this is a shift across all disciplines of the social sciencse, where numerous results are not reproducible. Economics especially has a rash of issues (probably like psychology) because experimentation is performed on a sample of population of undergrad students who get paid for their time. As a side ntoe, John Oliver does a great segment on how mainstream media miscommunicates scientific results

by Fede_V 10y ago

devoply 10y ago

Marketing has always won out over knowledge. It just took a bit of time for that sort of thing to catch up here. And I doubt that marketing through news publications is going to fix that. Human systems slowly accumulate entropy and eventually have to rebuilt from scratch. I don't think human systems can self-repair. There is too much vested interest from various parties to allow that to happen in human systems. And usually when that happens some other group that's doing the work better, say China, out competes the systems which are broken. I don't know if China suffers the same problem, they probably do. But whatever, this sort of behavior creates opportunity for others to move in that do the work better.

TheCowboy 10y ago

This article seems like it should have been flagged as part of political detox week, as it's promoting more emotional than useful discussions. I do think your first sentence has some truth, but I wouldn't use Thiel as a reference as it just seems to be an appeal to emotion. Is there any evidence backing up Thiel's assertion? It sounds like romanticizing the past and idealizing eccentricity. It's also begging the question that eccentric/idiosyncratic people make the best scientists.

Fede_V 10y ago
I don't think I should have said 'that's exactly right' - I should have said 'that's partially right'. The funding climate right now is very competitive, and the ability to obtain funds is more important than it's ever been. For another example, here is Peter Higgs (the guy who developed the theory that predicted the boson) discussing modern science: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-boson-academic-system https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-.... As far as quantitative data about trends in scientific funding - we have lots of data showing that the funding climate is the worse it's ever been, but I wouldn't even know how to quantitatively prove that being 'strategic' is more important now than it was in the past.

htrp 10y ago

Think this is a shift across all disciplines of the social sciencse, where numerous results are not reproducible. Economics especially has a rash of issues (probably like psychology) because experimentation is performed on a sample of population of undergrad students who get paid for their time. As a side ntoe, John Oliver does a great segment on how mainstream media miscommunicates scientific results