4 ms·

Read the history of the field. Read textbooks, oldest ones first. Don't try to understand a field by looking at the new research. Ignore anything you see in

Read the history of the field. Read textbooks, oldest ones first. Don't try to understand a field by looking at the new research. Ignore anything you see in the popular press, newspapers, TED talks, or the internet generally. Read opinions by experts in adjacent fields whose expertise you can more readily evaluate. Good luck :-)

lethologica 6y ago
This is a good demonstration of the Lindy Effect. [0] Essentially, the longer something has been around, the more chance it has of still existing in the future. This is exactly the same approach I take when I’m trying to learn a new field, especially one in which I have little to no background. I always begin with the texts that have survived the longest and are still recommended to this day. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
jkhdigital 6y ago
Can’t recommend this approach more. I’m a PhD student in cryptography and I often find that my understanding of a particular problem area is dramatically improved by reading stuff from 20-30 years ago (crypto is a young field) rather than recent publications.
SZJX 6y ago
While this could very well be valid in natural science fields, I’ve heard that in humanity fields as well as in something as controversial and largely unknown as neuroscience (different from traditional hard science fields such as maths and physics), the consensus gets overthrown so quickly/gets a makeover almost every decade, that old research might appear completely different from the newest consensus in the field. Of course you still have to draw a conclusion yourself in the end by synthesizing all available information, but I wouldn’t say that old information would necessarily be more trustworthy in this case. A lot of understanding in psychology/health from a few decades ago seem to be deemed nonsensical nowadays, and in many of the cases I agree with the newer conclusions.
- inimino 6y ago
  > A lot of understanding in psychology/health from a few decades ago seem to be deemed nonsensical nowadays, and in many of the cases I agree with the newer conclusions. This is why the Lindy heuristic mentioned by a sibling comment to yours is relevant. If X% of the consensus in a field was overturned twenty years ago, then again ten years ago, your expectation should be that in ten years, X% of the current consensus will be thrown out as nonsense as well. So it's not necessarily that the old information was more accurate, but you can't interpret the new information well without it. What's X in your field? Maybe 5%, maybe 80%, then you should look at the field very differently. Of course, you could be living through another annus mirabilis, where a new consensus is established that then stands for centuries. But this is by definition unlikely, so there must be strong evidence available.

lethologica 6y ago

This is a good demonstration of the Lindy Effect. [0] Essentially, the longer something has been around, the more chance it has of still existing in the future. This is exactly the same approach I take when I’m trying to learn a new field, especially one in which I have little to no background. I always begin with the texts that have survived the longest and are still recommended to this day. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

jkhdigital 6y ago

Can’t recommend this approach more. I’m a PhD student in cryptography and I often find that my understanding of a particular problem area is dramatically improved by reading stuff from 20-30 years ago (crypto is a young field) rather than recent publications.

SZJX 6y ago

While this could very well be valid in natural science fields, I’ve heard that in humanity fields as well as in something as controversial and largely unknown as neuroscience (different from traditional hard science fields such as maths and physics), the consensus gets overthrown so quickly/gets a makeover almost every decade, that old research might appear completely different from the newest consensus in the field. Of course you still have to draw a conclusion yourself in the end by synthesizing all available information, but I wouldn’t say that old information would necessarily be more trustworthy in this case. A lot of understanding in psychology/health from a few decades ago seem to be deemed nonsensical nowadays, and in many of the cases I agree with the newer conclusions.

inimino 6y ago
> A lot of understanding in psychology/health from a few decades ago seem to be deemed nonsensical nowadays, and in many of the cases I agree with the newer conclusions. This is why the Lindy heuristic mentioned by a sibling comment to yours is relevant. If X% of the consensus in a field was overturned twenty years ago, then again ten years ago, your expectation should be that in ten years, X% of the current consensus will be thrown out as nonsense as well. So it's not necessarily that the old information was more accurate, but you can't interpret the new information well without it. What's X in your field? Maybe 5%, maybe 80%, then you should look at the field very differently. Of course, you could be living through another annus mirabilis, where a new consensus is established that then stands for centuries. But this is by definition unlikely, so there must be strong evidence available.