3 ms·

It is remarkable how frequently “unreasonable effectiveness” is thrown around.

nerdponx 8y ago
It's a deliberate riff on "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences", in the same vein of declaring something "considered harmful."
- tomrod 8y ago
  I must be missing something -- I have never considered the "unreasonable effectiveness" and "considered harmful" to be equivalent?
  - adrianhel 8y ago
    "The unreasonable effectiveness of ___" and "___ considered harmful" titles are copied a lot. They are not equivalent in any way.
  - jasode 8y ago
    >I have never considered the "unreasonable effectiveness" and "considered harmful" to be equivalent? I didn't downvote you but as an fyi... When gp wrote "in the same vein of", he wasn't saying the phrases meant the same thing. He was pointing out that they are the same classification of rhetorical device which some call a "snowclone". (See examples.[1]) The "unreasonable effectiveness of <x>" is re-used as a text template similar to "<x> considered harmful". For another timely example, the current #1 story on HN is ""Debugging Emacs, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love DTrace"". I think many readers will recognize it as a snowclone of the Kubrick film title "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" The snowclone is: "<X> or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love <Y>".[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone#Notable_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone#Notable_examples [2] More examples of previous HN submissions that used that Strangelove snowclone: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=or%20%22how%20i%20learned%20to%20love%22&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=or%20%22how%20i%20learned%20to...)
    - tomrod 8y ago
      Ah, that makes sense. Thanks -- and thanks for teaching me about "snowclone".
  - buboard 8y ago
    for the sake of completeness, both are good reads https://homepages.cwi.nl/~storm/teaching/reader/Dijkstra68.pdf https://homepages.cwi.nl/~storm/teaching/reader/Dijkstra68.p... https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/papers/wigner.pdf https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/papers/wigner.pdf
- thinkr42 8y ago
  That is something I hadn’t thought of before
swagasaurus-rex 8y ago
Perhaps it's the educated equivalent of "You'll be amazed at this one amazing trick!"
- backpropaganda 8y ago
  We embrace that as well: https://arxiv.org/abs/1404.5997 https://arxiv.org/abs/1404.5997

It's a deliberate riff on "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences", in the same vein of declaring something "considered harmful."

tomrod 8y ago
I must be missing something -- I have never considered the "unreasonable effectiveness" and "considered harmful" to be equivalent?
- adrianhel 8y ago
  "The unreasonable effectiveness of ___" and "___ considered harmful" titles are copied a lot. They are not equivalent in any way.
- jasode 8y ago
  >I have never considered the "unreasonable effectiveness" and "considered harmful" to be equivalent? I didn't downvote you but as an fyi... When gp wrote "in the same vein of", he wasn't saying the phrases meant the same thing. He was pointing out that they are the same classification of rhetorical device which some call a "snowclone". (See examples.[1]) The "unreasonable effectiveness of <x>" is re-used as a text template similar to "<x> considered harmful". For another timely example, the current #1 story on HN is ""Debugging Emacs, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love DTrace"". I think many readers will recognize it as a snowclone of the Kubrick film title "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" The snowclone is: "<X> or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love <Y>".[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone#Notable_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone#Notable_examples [2] More examples of previous HN submissions that used that Strangelove snowclone: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=or%20%22how%20i%20learned%20to%20love%22&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=or%20%22how%20i%20learned%20to...)
  - tomrod 8y ago
    Ah, that makes sense. Thanks -- and thanks for teaching me about "snowclone".
- buboard 8y ago
  for the sake of completeness, both are good reads https://homepages.cwi.nl/~storm/teaching/reader/Dijkstra68.pdf https://homepages.cwi.nl/~storm/teaching/reader/Dijkstra68.p... https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/papers/wigner.pdf https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/papers/wigner.pdf
thinkr42 8y ago
That is something I hadn’t thought of before

swagasaurus-rex 8y ago

Perhaps it's the educated equivalent of "You'll be amazed at this one amazing trick!"

backpropaganda 8y ago
We embrace that as well: https://arxiv.org/abs/1404.5997 https://arxiv.org/abs/1404.5997