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> Newton made three bets. One of them worked. But they were all risky. Except it was three: - Optics - Gravitation and mechanics - Mathematics There are ma

> Newton made three bets. One of them worked. But they were all risky. Except it was three: - Optics - Gravitation and mechanics - Mathematics There are many scientists out there who spend a lifetime on theories that turn out to be bogus, but calling it a bet is entirely missing the point.

dhfhduk 10y ago
A couple of years ago, I went to a museum exhibition of DaVinci's notebooks. I was completely unprepared for what was my primary reaction: that DaVinci just documented every idea in his head, and that some of them just happened to pan out. But for some reason, we credit him for the small percentage of ideas that just happened to work, and ignore all the wrong ideas. To me, he didn't seem like a genius, he seemed very much like a broken clock that just happened to be right twice a day. There's a certain survivor bias in these sorts of discussions, where we identify great contributors as taking huge risks, and so forth and so on. This is true, but we also maybe tend to give them too much credit because we ignore all their failures. We tell ourselves that's why perseverence is so important, but then turn around and make fun of people or even become angry at them for wasting our time when so many things don't turn out. The difference between perseverence and shotgun approaches to pursuing knowledge seems arbitrary to me lots of times. If you followed every one of DaVinci's ideas, for example, you'd be screwed, because he was so wrong about so many things. Today, he'd probably be seen as a crackpot because it would be so difficult to know when his idea was right and when it was wrong. The value of his ideas lies as much in his audience, the people who realized what of his ideas was correct, as much as, if not more, than in DaVinci himself. I guess I've grown really disillusioned with advancements in science, because so much of it involves a sort of mythmaking that seems fairy-tale to me. To me, the reality seems more distributed, involving small contributions, gradually changing over time, with a lot of randomness involved. I don't mean to come across as saying we shouldn't encourage experimentation and tinkering, or that it shouldn't be valued. In fact, I'd argue the opposite. But at the same time something seems off about our incentive structures--the way we give credit seems off. Think of it this way: we do science because at some level, what's correct and what's not is an empirical idea. You could have 10 very reasonable explanations and 9 of them will be wrong "just because." In many cases, being intelligent has nothing to do with why the 9 are wrong, otherwise all we'd need would be philosophy and math. So why do we pretend that the 1 person who was correct was correct because they are a genius? It seems like you can't have geniuses and a need for science at the same time.
- landon32 10y ago
  You have some interesting points. Re: DaVinci, do you think it's possible that he knew most of his ideas were bad? I write down every product idea I have, but I know that maybe 1 in 10 would actually be used by people and maybe 1 in 10 of the useful ones would be good investments of my time to work on. I think that writing down all the bad ideas helps me think of good ideas though. Re: Scientific geniuses are admired too much, I think you're right. The Media totally picks out the success stories because that's what interests people. Then The Media is incentivized to make these successful scientists seem really smart, also because that's what interests people. Sam Altman has talked about a similar thing. When you meet the Brian Chesky's and Mark Zuckerbergs today, you see brilliant, confident entrepreneurs that seem like geniuses that must have some special DNA. However, the reality is that 10 years ago these people seemed totally regular, just struggling entrepreneurs like so many others. Though they are clever and hard working, it's not like they're made of a different thing than everyone else.
- noam87 10y ago
  About mathematician Yutaka Taniyama: > He was not a very careful person as a mathematician. He made a lot of mistakes. But he made mistakes in a good direction. I tried to imitate him. But I’ve realized that it’s very difficult to make good mistakes. I bet if you compared DaVinci's mistakes to the mistakes of your average Renaissance thinker you'd find a striking difference in calliber (and breadth).
runesoerensen 10y ago
> Except it was three Maybe he's referring to the bets Newton (somewhat implicitly) made by dedicating time to physics/science as well as alchemy and theology.
- kowdermeister 10y ago
  I think alchemy at the time was just another domain of science than anything else. To them it was like today's dark matter and dark energy or figuring out cold fusion or reaction-less drives. These are not really bets, it's all what Newton was, a man's passion, life and legacy.
  - runesoerensen 10y ago
    You're probably right. I think/hope you got the point anyway :)
balsam 10y ago
Newton was betting that he would not go crazy or be seen as crazy. The existential risk for thinkers.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
ritchiea 10y ago
How is calling it a bet missing the point? As a scientist investigating a phenomenon in the natural world, assuming you wish to make a new contribution to your field, you are betting your time that you will both arrive at a new understanding of your subject matter and also be the first to do so.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- kowdermeister 10y ago
  If you just bet that for example string theory is a good enough field for research then you'll be deeply disappointed if it turns out to be nothing but a mirage. These people live for research. They can work on anything (because interests them) and no matter if it has earth shattering consequences or small breaks they can still be happy during the process, so calling it risky or dangerous is laughable.
tpetricek 10y ago
I think the point was that Newton devoted a lot of time to things that are not optics, mechanics and mathematics - we do not remember him for the other things obviously, which is why it is rarely known, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_occult_studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_occult_studies

dhfhduk 10y ago

A couple of years ago, I went to a museum exhibition of DaVinci's notebooks. I was completely unprepared for what was my primary reaction: that DaVinci just documented every idea in his head, and that some of them just happened to pan out. But for some reason, we credit him for the small percentage of ideas that just happened to work, and ignore all the wrong ideas. To me, he didn't seem like a genius, he seemed very much like a broken clock that just happened to be right twice a day. There's a certain survivor bias in these sorts of discussions, where we identify great contributors as taking huge risks, and so forth and so on. This is true, but we also maybe tend to give them too much credit because we ignore all their failures. We tell ourselves that's why perseverence is so important, but then turn around and make fun of people or even become angry at them for wasting our time when so many things don't turn out. The difference between perseverence and shotgun approaches to pursuing knowledge seems arbitrary to me lots of times. If you followed every one of DaVinci's ideas, for example, you'd be screwed, because he was so wrong about so many things. Today, he'd probably be seen as a crackpot because it would be so difficult to know when his idea was right and when it was wrong. The value of his ideas lies as much in his audience, the people who realized what of his ideas was correct, as much as, if not more, than in DaVinci himself. I guess I've grown really disillusioned with advancements in science, because so much of it involves a sort of mythmaking that seems fairy-tale to me. To me, the reality seems more distributed, involving small contributions, gradually changing over time, with a lot of randomness involved. I don't mean to come across as saying we shouldn't encourage experimentation and tinkering, or that it shouldn't be valued. In fact, I'd argue the opposite. But at the same time something seems off about our incentive structures--the way we give credit seems off. Think of it this way: we do science because at some level, what's correct and what's not is an empirical idea. You could have 10 very reasonable explanations and 9 of them will be wrong "just because." In many cases, being intelligent has nothing to do with why the 9 are wrong, otherwise all we'd need would be philosophy and math. So why do we pretend that the 1 person who was correct was correct because they are a genius? It seems like you can't have geniuses and a need for science at the same time.

landon32 10y ago
You have some interesting points. Re: DaVinci, do you think it's possible that he knew most of his ideas were bad? I write down every product idea I have, but I know that maybe 1 in 10 would actually be used by people and maybe 1 in 10 of the useful ones would be good investments of my time to work on. I think that writing down all the bad ideas helps me think of good ideas though. Re: Scientific geniuses are admired too much, I think you're right. The Media totally picks out the success stories because that's what interests people. Then The Media is incentivized to make these successful scientists seem really smart, also because that's what interests people. Sam Altman has talked about a similar thing. When you meet the Brian Chesky's and Mark Zuckerbergs today, you see brilliant, confident entrepreneurs that seem like geniuses that must have some special DNA. However, the reality is that 10 years ago these people seemed totally regular, just struggling entrepreneurs like so many others. Though they are clever and hard working, it's not like they're made of a different thing than everyone else.
noam87 10y ago
About mathematician Yutaka Taniyama: > He was not a very careful person as a mathematician. He made a lot of mistakes. But he made mistakes in a good direction. I tried to imitate him. But I’ve realized that it’s very difficult to make good mistakes. I bet if you compared DaVinci's mistakes to the mistakes of your average Renaissance thinker you'd find a striking difference in calliber (and breadth).

runesoerensen 10y ago

> Except it was three Maybe he's referring to the bets Newton (somewhat implicitly) made by dedicating time to physics/science as well as alchemy and theology.

kowdermeister 10y ago
I think alchemy at the time was just another domain of science than anything else. To them it was like today's dark matter and dark energy or figuring out cold fusion or reaction-less drives. These are not really bets, it's all what Newton was, a man's passion, life and legacy.
- runesoerensen 10y ago
  You're probably right. I think/hope you got the point anyway :)

balsam 10y ago

Newton was betting that he would not go crazy or be seen as crazy. The existential risk for thinkers.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

ritchiea 10y ago

How is calling it a bet missing the point? As a scientist investigating a phenomenon in the natural world, assuming you wish to make a new contribution to your field, you are betting your time that you will both arrive at a new understanding of your subject matter and also be the first to do so.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
kowdermeister 10y ago
If you just bet that for example string theory is a good enough field for research then you'll be deeply disappointed if it turns out to be nothing but a mirage. These people live for research. They can work on anything (because interests them) and no matter if it has earth shattering consequences or small breaks they can still be happy during the process, so calling it risky or dangerous is laughable.

tpetricek 10y ago

I think the point was that Newton devoted a lot of time to things that are not optics, mechanics and mathematics - we do not remember him for the other things obviously, which is why it is rarely known, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_occult_studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_occult_studies