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"To be a successful scientist, for example, it's not enough just to be correct. Your ideas have to be both correct and novel. You can't publish papers saying th
by strofcon 6y ago
"To be a successful scientist, for example, it's not enough just to be correct. Your ideas have to be both correct and novel. You can't publish papers saying things other people already know. You need to say things no one else has realized yet."
Oof, first paragraph and he's entirely wrong. That's rough.
One of the most worrisome aspects of the world's take on science lately is that reproduction of published results is considered the work of dullards and thus unworthy of funding.
By definition, reproduction of results is not novel, and yet it is (or at least really should be) one of the single most crucial aspects of a shared scientific method.
This is profoundly bad thinking by Paul.
- fractionalhare 6y agoIn fairness, PG's statement there is correct if you consider it descriptively rather than prescriptively, for exactly the reason you outlined in your comment. As a positive statement of fact about the current ethos of science it's correct. Less so if you interpret it as a normative imperative.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- coolgod 6y agoDepends on what your definition and metric of success. If all academia cares about is citation count then PG makes a good argument.
- klipt 6y agoBoth are true: Gaming metrics is good for your career. Having bad metrics is bad for society.
- oh_sigh 6y agoReproduction of a result is novel if it hasn't been reproduced yet.
- Yajirobe 6y agoWhat? What he says is completely right. You can keep verifying other people's work, you can verify that bad ideas not work, but these approaches will not get you published. What you're saying would be true in an ideal world, but it's not true in today's academic world.