4 ms·
I wonder if what the author is observing is an effect of the industrialization of science. As she pointed out, > Because the existing scientific system does n
by ColanR 7y ago
I wonder if what the author is observing is an effect of the industrialization of science. As she pointed out,
> Because the existing scientific system does not encourage learning. Physicists today can happily make career by writing papers about things no one has ever observed, and never will observe.
Maybe what's really going on is that almost every scientist out there is forced to chase grants and maintain a steady stream of publications. We have to give our scientists the ability to put long-term effort into projects that have a low likelyhood of payoff; otherwise research stagnates.
Also, it seems like the 'groupthink' she pointed out is a very real problem. Remember that weird EM drive associated with NASA? We all know that it's nearly impossible that it could be a valid phenomenon; but as a global scientific community, almost everyone dismissed it outright. We should all have jumped on it, to see if it could possibly be true, regardless of how outlandish. If we are unwilling to explore the boundaries of what we know, then we deserve to stagnate, and we will.
- btrettel 7y agoThe inability to make long-term investments is a major reason I don't intend to stay in academia after my PhD. Government and corporate labs don't seem better in my view either. At present my plan is the following: Keep the amount of time spent making money to the minimum needed to support myself. Then I can invest my own time and money into research. I could make money from research via grants/contracts like normal academics, but that's not necessary in this scheme. I'm thinking about starting several SaaS businesses.
- dsign 7y agoI went that way. Five years down the line, when I read theoretical physics, I'm glad of what chose.
- ColanR 7y agoThat is almost precisely my own intention. There should be a club. Have you heard of one?
- btrettel 7y agoI set up this forum a while ago: https://www.indiesciforum.com/ https://www.indiesciforum.com/ But I got busy and never launched. I guess this is the launch then? Feel free to join, post, etc. I'd love to discuss this with like-minded folks.
- ColanR 7y agoNice! I'll check it out.
- Xcelerate 7y ago+1. This is my life plan as well — financial independence as soon as possible then start my own research. There really should be a club for this...
- ColanR 7y agoIf we're nearby to each other, we could get it started. You in the DC area?
- scott_s 7y agoYour suggestion about jumping on the EM drive is in direct opposition to what Sabine suggests: "The only way to avoid being sucked into this vicious cycle is to choose carefully which hypothesis to put to the test. But physicists still operate by the “just look” idea like this was the 19th century. They do not think about which hypotheses are promising because their education has not taught them to do so. Such self-reflection would require knowledge of the philosophy and sociology of science, and those are subjects physicists merely make dismissive jokes about. They believe they are too intelligent to have to think about what they are doing." Jumping on a crank's idea is not carefully choosing which hypothesis to test.
- ColanR 7y agoYou call the originator of the EM drive a crank; I am proposing that the widespread adoption of your dismissive attitude is in large part the cause of the current scientific stagnation observed by the author. I also suggested that the other large cause of the current stagnation is that we do not have enough scientists pursuing outlandish theories - we should hear about things like the EM drive far more frequently, and we should be excited about new ideas, not dismissive of anything foreign to the current 'groupthink'. Also, returning to your first point, the author pointed out just the opposite to the point you're attempting to make: > With fewer experiments, serendipitous discoveries become increasingly unlikely. And lacking those discoveries, the technological progress that would be needed to keep experiments economically viable never materializes. It’s a vicious cycle: Costly experiments result in lack of progress. Lack of progress increases the costs of further experiment. This cycle must eventually lead into a dead end when experiments become simply too expensive to remain affordable. A $40 billion particle collider is such a dead end.