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Ex-biochemist here, turned political technologist (who's spent a few years engaged in electoral reform and governance convos) > the goal of research, which is
by patcon 5y ago
Ex-biochemist here, turned political technologist (who's spent a few years engaged in electoral reform and governance convos)
> the goal of research, which is to expand the scope and quality of human knowledge.
But are we so certain this is ever what drove science? Before we dive into twiddling knobs with a presumption of understanding some foundational motivation, it's worth asking. Sometimes the stories we tell are not the stories that drive the underlying machinery.
For e.g., we have a lot of wishy-washy "folk theories" of how democracy works, but actual political scientists know that most of the ones people "think" drive democracy, are actually just a bullshit story. According to some, it's even possible that the function of these common-belief fabrications is that their falsely simple narrative stabilizes democracy itself in the mind of the everyman, due to the trustworthiness of seemingly simple things. So it's an important falsehood to have in the meme pool. But the real forces that make democracy work are either (a) quite complex and obscure, or even (b) as-of-yet inconclusive. [1]
I wonder if science has some similar vibes: folks theory vs what actually drives it. Maybe the folk theory is "expand human knowledge", but the true machinery is and always has been a complex concoction of human ego, corruption and the fancies of the wealthy, topped with an icing of natural human curiosity.
[1]" https://www.amazon.ca/Democracy-Realists-Elections-Responsive-Government/dp/0691178240 https://www.amazon.ca/Democracy-Realists-Elections-Responsiv...
- akiselev 5y ago> I wonder if science has some similar vibes: folks theory vs what actually drives it. Maybe the folk theory is "expand human knowledge", but the true machinery is and always has been a complex concoction of human ego, corruption and the fancies of the wealthy, topped with an icing of natural human curiosity. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn is an excellent read on this topic - dense but considered one of the most important works in the philosophy of science. It popularized Planck's Principle paraphrased as "Science progresses one funeral at a time." As you note, the true machinery is a very complicated mix of human factors and actual science.
- eru 5y agoSee also the Myth of the Rational Voter https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/698866.The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/698866.The_Myth_of_the_R...
- Haga 5y agoCaged Schizophrenia and sado masochistic tendencies. Schizophrenia recombines endless unrelated ideas, which is the base for most large non incremental breakthroughs. Sadistic tendencies torture out the truth, murdering false papers and theories that survived birth.
- obviouslynotme 5y agoModern real science is driven by engineering that is driven by an industry that is is driven by profit and nature. If you are reading a paper that isn't driven by that chain of incentives, then the bullshit probability shoots way up. If someone somewhere isn't reading your paper to make a widget that is sold to someone to do something useful, then you can say whatever you want.