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I think this is categorically different. What you are talking about is a bias to work on things that are measurable followed by goodharts law; the linked paper
by dnautics 5y ago
I think this is categorically different. What you are talking about is a bias to work on things that are measurable followed by goodharts law; the linked paper is more like "if you throw money at a problem and increase participation in the field it becomes more difficult to separate wheat from chaff due to sheer volume".
- Bohbc 5y agoYup its like sorting through YouTubes 7 trillion 'How to make an omelette' videos. You know there are great ones in there but its a crap shoot what gets found. More awareness reqd about the Explore-Exploit tradeoff.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoMy point is that researchers are "graded" on things that are easily measured, things like publication quantity and "citation impact factor", which leads to a sort of monoculture in academia.
- dnautics 5y agothat is at best tangentially related to the issue in OP.
- makeitdouble 5y agoFrom the abstract I see OP's point to directly apply. Simplistic metrics (number of citations for instance) applied to papers push people toward "easy" decisions (reading the "best" papers in priority), and they don't get to discuss the more innovative work. I see the parallel on people too focused on data and easily measurable properties, missing "riskier" works that would rely on subjective evaluation or less clear selection criteria.