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I now promise myself I will never read the comments on an HN Science article going forward. The sheer number of individuals here who presume scientists are idio

I now promise myself I will never read the comments on an HN Science article going forward. The sheer number of individuals here who presume scientists are idiots, that the decisions they make are dumb or ill- motivated demonstrates the sheer hubris and lack of humility of a large portion of HN commenters. I guarantee you that scientists are as smart and capable as the best of the non-scientist HN population, and were the story roles reversed, that scientists on the whole would be more humble about the limits of their knowledge about programming practice and design, etc. They would not revel in the "idiocy" of your bugs, security lapses, or petty spy-based mobile apps. Well maybe the last. Have some humility. Stop building up fragile egos by tearing others down, pretending that you wouldn't make similar "mistakes" or produce designs with similar weaknesses or limits. Edit 1:Yes I'll defend my tribe. Each down-vote is a badge.

dekhn 6y ago
I spent a couple decades as a scientist. I was modestly successful, published only work that I believe was truly defensible, and never over sold any of my results. I've asked to have my name removed from a paper that was submitted when I noticed it was revised to include lies after I had written it. I believe you are wrong in saying that scientists aren't idiots: they make colossal errors, obvious ones, all the time! Frankly, I think most successful (in terms of adulation and $$$) scientists are ones who learned how to play the games scientists play, and publish known incorrect work, or unknowingly publish overly strong estimates of their confidence, because they've mastered the incentive system, not because they're not idiots. I see very little true humility amongst scientists- nearly every successful one I've met was aggresively egotistical. That said, after another 10-15 years of being a SWE, I've come to the conclusion most SWEs are idiots, too- too focused on clever algorithms and microoptimizations.
- SubiculumCode 6y ago
  We are all idiots to some degree, scientists are no exception. But I firmly disagree with your assessment of the state of science and scientists. Improvements to be made? Certainly.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
feoren 6y ago
They fit a TWELFTH-ORDER polynomial to the noise data. Twelfth! If you're ever fitting a twelfth-order polynomial to any data, ever, you need to seriously re-examine your underlying assumptions. I would go so far as to say that anyone fitting a 12th order polynomial to observational data is an idiot, at least when it comes to statistics.
- SubiculumCode 6y ago
  Twelth order polynomials do seem extreme, but without being an expert in the context they used it, I cannot determine its appropriateness. As an extreme, let us suppose that we know that there are 6 sources of noise spread out over the x-axis, and that the power of the noise will decrease x units away from each source. In that case, you might suspect that noise function needs a 12th order polynomial to fit the undulation pattern, just to get the necessary number of humps.
aaron695 6y ago
> The sheer number of individuals here who presume scientists are idiots The general population are idiots. The amount of scientists studying is huge compared to 40 years ago. It has to be full of idiots. We are not talking mistakes. We are talking fundamental structural flaws. The fact people in the scientific community defend themselves with rhetoric show they are idiots. If scientists weren't such idiots they would attack the tech community and how useless it is. But it's scientists who support the AI lies for instance. They are a big part of the problem in tech.

dekhn 6y ago

I spent a couple decades as a scientist. I was modestly successful, published only work that I believe was truly defensible, and never over sold any of my results. I've asked to have my name removed from a paper that was submitted when I noticed it was revised to include lies after I had written it. I believe you are wrong in saying that scientists aren't idiots: they make colossal errors, obvious ones, all the time! Frankly, I think most successful (in terms of adulation and $$$) scientists are ones who learned how to play the games scientists play, and publish known incorrect work, or unknowingly publish overly strong estimates of their confidence, because they've mastered the incentive system, not because they're not idiots. I see very little true humility amongst scientists- nearly every successful one I've met was aggresively egotistical. That said, after another 10-15 years of being a SWE, I've come to the conclusion most SWEs are idiots, too- too focused on clever algorithms and microoptimizations.

SubiculumCode 6y ago
We are all idiots to some degree, scientists are no exception. But I firmly disagree with your assessment of the state of science and scientists. Improvements to be made? Certainly.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

feoren 6y ago

They fit a TWELFTH-ORDER polynomial to the noise data. Twelfth! If you're ever fitting a twelfth-order polynomial to any data, ever, you need to seriously re-examine your underlying assumptions. I would go so far as to say that anyone fitting a 12th order polynomial to observational data is an idiot, at least when it comes to statistics.

SubiculumCode 6y ago
Twelth order polynomials do seem extreme, but without being an expert in the context they used it, I cannot determine its appropriateness. As an extreme, let us suppose that we know that there are 6 sources of noise spread out over the x-axis, and that the power of the noise will decrease x units away from each source. In that case, you might suspect that noise function needs a 12th order polynomial to fit the undulation pattern, just to get the necessary number of humps.

aaron695 6y ago

> The sheer number of individuals here who presume scientists are idiots The general population are idiots. The amount of scientists studying is huge compared to 40 years ago. It has to be full of idiots. We are not talking mistakes. We are talking fundamental structural flaws. The fact people in the scientific community defend themselves with rhetoric show they are idiots. If scientists weren't such idiots they would attack the tech community and how useless it is. But it's scientists who support the AI lies for instance. They are a big part of the problem in tech.