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This would be terrible for research. You would be throwing away so-called pure endeavours. Where would pure math fit in your vision? Homotopy Type Theory would

This would be terrible for research. You would be throwing away so-called pure endeavours. Where would pure math fit in your vision? Homotopy Type Theory would be a no-go for instance. Market forces are not and can't be the start and end of how resources are allocated, especially in academia/research. You would be stiffling that which does not seem to yield immediate, visible results (profit). Except that's what research does. It's why it's called research.

raziel2701 6y ago
Math can continue its current structure because as far as I know there is no reproducibility crisis in it, it's all supposed to be logical proofs that should stand by themselves. My idea would be for the experimentalists, give them the opportunity to tinker and trial and error without the bs pressures of publish or perish, and/or crotchety advisors. I just want the academic to be exposed a little bit to something from reality that can give them feedback, market forces is what came to mind because the introductions of so many papers talk about the potential applications of their niche research, but you never see anyone actually do the application. So how about they give that a shot? Let's put the models to the test and see if they can build something. That is in my opinion a much better approach at evaluating what can be reproduced. If they build something and did so without their academic models, well, then now we need theoreticians to figure out what's going on there. To me this seems a more organic approach, where the direction of research is being led by stochastic discoveries fueled by an acceptance of the risks of trial and error. The top-down, directed research approach we have is hard to stomach with inherently biased people at the top, and this type of system will only change its preferences on research directions one funeral at a time. That's a lot of time to waste for many many 20 - 30 year olds that have ideas but don't have a fighting chance to try.

raziel2701 6y ago

Math can continue its current structure because as far as I know there is no reproducibility crisis in it, it's all supposed to be logical proofs that should stand by themselves. My idea would be for the experimentalists, give them the opportunity to tinker and trial and error without the bs pressures of publish or perish, and/or crotchety advisors. I just want the academic to be exposed a little bit to something from reality that can give them feedback, market forces is what came to mind because the introductions of so many papers talk about the potential applications of their niche research, but you never see anyone actually do the application. So how about they give that a shot? Let's put the models to the test and see if they can build something. That is in my opinion a much better approach at evaluating what can be reproduced. If they build something and did so without their academic models, well, then now we need theoreticians to figure out what's going on there. To me this seems a more organic approach, where the direction of research is being led by stochastic discoveries fueled by an acceptance of the risks of trial and error. The top-down, directed research approach we have is hard to stomach with inherently biased people at the top, and this type of system will only change its preferences on research directions one funeral at a time. That's a lot of time to waste for many many 20 - 30 year olds that have ideas but don't have a fighting chance to try.