4 ms·

>> “‘If we suppose that a rabbit was coming out of the hat, then remarkably, this rabbit would be coming out of the hat,’” Aaronson says. “And then [going] on a

>> “‘If we suppose that a rabbit was coming out of the hat, then remarkably, this rabbit would be coming out of the hat,’” Aaronson says. “And then [going] on and on about how remarkable it is.” That has to be one of funniest quotes I ever read. I did have this thought that Stephen Wolfram may be overrated in the past. He is a good businessman for sure. The amount of attention he gets from the media does appear to be disproportionate to his achievements and perhaps may cause overconfidence. That said I do understand the view that the scientific community may have become so narrowly focused on rigid scientific review processes that they could be missing out on real innovation and alternative ideas. For example I can't help but think of what would happen if some random (not PhD) engineer came up with a new and highly innovative mathematical construct and published it on their blog... I doubt their idea would get any attention at all; no matter how useful or impressive it is. It would be lost in the noise because scientists are not going to review it. Science is still operating on an outdated idea that all scientific knowledge is centralized within universities and that all credible innovations must necessarily come from these universities and all great scientists must be somehow be socially connected to existing great scientists. As if direct social connections are still the only pathways through which cutting-edge knowledge can flow. It completely ignores the existence of the internet.

thechao 6y ago
There are a limited number of hours in the day. I guarantee you that >99.99% of all nonexpert blogs on the internet are pure garbage—should they spend 50-100 hours a week reviewing crazy? My field was an uninteresting sub-field of programming language theory, and every conference, at least 1/2 the papers submitted were borderline batshit insane. The stuff on the internet is gibberish. Screaming into the night & railing that physicists are ignoring you is just sociopathy. Instead, go to them, give presentations, prove your ideas have merit. Make it short to get their attention, build up credit & lead them to what’s new.
- achillesheels 6y ago
  No, it isn’t sociopathy. I, for instance, tried to engage with Sabine Hossenfelder on a novel interpretation of electron diffraction which would help demonstrate linear time-invariance of electromagnetic phenomena in an atomic scale (nickel crystal) only to be completely ignored - despite the fact she posts on her blog a “speak to a physicist” button. In fact, the physicist she paired me with failed to appear to two scheduled Skype calls and explained he was too sick after the fact. And no response from her. So here I am, with ignored emails by professors because they don’t have the bandwidth and I don’t have the branding. Physicists by trade do not trade on advancing the state of the art. That takes courage and risk of reputation. This is why the natural sciences have progressed outside of vocations. “Lead then to what’s new” is better worded as “make it shameful to ignore you”. I am acutely aware of that now.
  - cryptica 6y ago
    I don't understand why this comment was downvoted. It's insightful. If anything, the fact that this comment was downvoted helps to prove its point that people tend to quickly discard contrarian ideas without giving them careful thought.
fenomas 6y ago
> For example I can't help but think of what would happen if some random (not PhD) engineer came up with a new and highly innovative mathematical construct and published it on their blog... I doubt their idea would get any attention at all; no matter how useful or impressive it is. It would be lost in the noise because scientists are not going to review it Anecdote: as an undergrad I worked part-time for a physics research group, and once my address got added to their staff web page, I started receiving "highly innovative" new theories via email about once per week. They were generally long and involved; it would have taken me hours to pore through one and figure out what it was trying to argue or whether it made any sense. And this was circa 1995, when only a small portion of the world had access to email, let alone web pages. I wonder what it's like now...

thechao 6y ago

There are a limited number of hours in the day. I guarantee you that >99.99% of all nonexpert blogs on the internet are pure garbage—should they spend 50-100 hours a week reviewing crazy? My field was an uninteresting sub-field of programming language theory, and every conference, at least 1/2 the papers submitted were borderline batshit insane. The stuff on the internet is gibberish. Screaming into the night & railing that physicists are ignoring you is just sociopathy. Instead, go to them, give presentations, prove your ideas have merit. Make it short to get their attention, build up credit & lead them to what’s new.

achillesheels 6y ago
No, it isn’t sociopathy. I, for instance, tried to engage with Sabine Hossenfelder on a novel interpretation of electron diffraction which would help demonstrate linear time-invariance of electromagnetic phenomena in an atomic scale (nickel crystal) only to be completely ignored - despite the fact she posts on her blog a “speak to a physicist” button. In fact, the physicist she paired me with failed to appear to two scheduled Skype calls and explained he was too sick after the fact. And no response from her. So here I am, with ignored emails by professors because they don’t have the bandwidth and I don’t have the branding. Physicists by trade do not trade on advancing the state of the art. That takes courage and risk of reputation. This is why the natural sciences have progressed outside of vocations. “Lead then to what’s new” is better worded as “make it shameful to ignore you”. I am acutely aware of that now.
- cryptica 6y ago
  I don't understand why this comment was downvoted. It's insightful. If anything, the fact that this comment was downvoted helps to prove its point that people tend to quickly discard contrarian ideas without giving them careful thought.

fenomas 6y ago

> For example I can't help but think of what would happen if some random (not PhD) engineer came up with a new and highly innovative mathematical construct and published it on their blog... I doubt their idea would get any attention at all; no matter how useful or impressive it is. It would be lost in the noise because scientists are not going to review it Anecdote: as an undergrad I worked part-time for a physics research group, and once my address got added to their staff web page, I started receiving "highly innovative" new theories via email about once per week. They were generally long and involved; it would have taken me hours to pore through one and figure out what it was trying to argue or whether it made any sense. And this was circa 1995, when only a small portion of the world had access to email, let alone web pages. I wonder what it's like now...