7 ms·

The Scientific Virtues: Stupidity, Arrogance, Laziness

119 points by bobcostas55 5y ago

goatsneez 5y ago
Just wonderful presentation of what values to hold for a curious, serious person trying to understand the (physical) world. Of cause, there is little bit of hyperbola on labeling some of these virtues, however, it is so enjoyable to put it this way nonetheless, and I would say does drive home the main point: the courage to be say I do no know. What was not said explicitly in the article is that all these virtues while needed in trying to understand (and find out, cut-through "bullshit") one has to hold of emotions and value judgements. And that is mighty difficult (things that we intuitively feel like should be or ought to be true). This is what B. Russell articulated so well in several of his maxims as well: "..the will to find out has to be much greater than the will to believe". As a parting remark, one can observes the exact opposite is (implicitly) demanded from researchers, and vanishingly small number of people are able to stand their ground against the current of modern scientism (which infested normal discourse, education institutions, and even research). "Selling" yourself, selling results, being vocal, advertise, publishing for sake of publishing, those things are part of a metric these days. What to do when adhering to the real virtues touched upon in this writing will essentially kill ones career?
- jrd259 5y ago
  Agree with your summary, but I am not impressed by the use of "stupid". Maybe "being willing to appear stupid", or "having beginner's mind" or "not making assumptions". But "stupid" is just click-bait. For that matter "laziness" too. Author says "work hard, but not all the time". But the others (Arrogance, Carefreeness, Beauty, Rebellion, Humor) all seem right to me.
  - contingencies 5y ago
    In English when seeking to imply a guiltless stupidity naive is often used.
    - pksebben 5y ago
      perhaps part of the point is to inoculate the reader against guilt. I enjoy my stupidity whether or not someone else has a judgement.
- balsam 5y ago
  How about a synthesis of the two: “will to find something worth believing in”.
pdonis 5y ago
Of all the qualities described in this article, I think the most important is being able to live with not knowing things, as described by Feynman: "I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit and if I can’t figure it out, then I go on to something else, but I don’t have to know an answer" We humans are generally not wired to accept not knowing things; we are wired to believe some answer to any question we can think to ask, whether we actually have any real basis for an answer or not. But giving in to that temptation just means our beliefs are out of sync with reality.
- hirundo 5y ago
  This is particularly evident in creation myths. In answer to "where did we come from, how was the world made", instead of a shrug or some unsatisfying facts, we hear a story. And our need to understand is such that we cling to that story, no matter how bizarre. It was the Great Coyote. No, it was a war between the Sun and the Moon. No, it was the invisible Sky Fairy. Some times it takes an unusual person to hear such a story and think WTF? And decide that they just don't know.
- manuelabeledo 5y ago
  I have struggled with this for the longest time. My field is nowhere close to Feynman's, but still, quite frequently I have found myself wondering "why", "why does this thing work this way?", "why is this, but not that?", leading invariably down a deep rabbit hole. Sometimes it's not a complete waste of time, as I learnt about the innards of the systems I interact with. Most of the time it kind of is.
- melony 5y ago
  He is also a human calculator with tremendous aptitude for arithmetics. What works for him won't necessarily generalize to others.
  - pdonis 5y ago
giantg2 5y ago
I'm dumb and ask stupid questions. My curiosity has only hurt me.
- nanomonkey 5y ago
  "What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger" -Nietzsche
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Or leaves you chronically damaged/paralyzed/etc.
  - circlefavshape 5y ago
    Seriously? People are still quoting this as if it's true?
- wongarsu 5y ago
  Nobody is born knowledgeable, and asking questions is almost always better in the long run than looking smart while staying ignorant. There there are ways to make questions sound less dumb, mostly involving that you made an effort at finding a solution. "Why is the sky blue?" sounds like a dumb question, "I saw that liquid oxygen is blue, is that why the sky is blue?" sounds much better (even though the assumption is completely wrong)
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Yeah, but most of success in today's world is built off of the perception that others have of you. In fact, some of the feedback I have gotten throughout the years is that I have lots of potential, I'm smart (smarter than I really am), well spoken (for an IT guy), etc. It doesn't mean anything because they always seem to think that I should be driving every meeting or conversation. If there's another person in the meeting with more knowledge in that specific area and I agree with their direction, why would I take over? So their perception is that I'm smart, but that I lack some other quality. My perception is that I'm dumber than the other guy but just smart enough to know to defer to their expertise. It leaves me stuck and unsuccessful. I'm stupid enough to ask certain questions... which I suppose makes them stupid questions. If we are a company notorious for value shopping, and the company says we're seeing deadlines or capacity slip due to not filling open positions, and is costing the company money, risk of tech debt not being addressed... it's stupid for someone like me to question that, but I do. If it were really costing the company money, then wouldn't we increase pay or not force people back to the office to increase headcount? There seems to be a contradiction here, and the people in power don't have an answer that makes sense (possibly because there are things they can't tell a peon me).
zhoujianfu 5y ago
The programmers virtues: Impatience, Hubris, Laziness -Larry Wall
- sidpatil 5y ago
  https://thethreevirtues.com/ https://thethreevirtues.com/
- austinjp 5y ago
  Exactly what I thought of too. Very similar to the article's virtues. I wonder where they're not appropriate? Anything centered around human interaction, probably, but otherwise similar attitudes seem useful in most forms of engineering and knowledge work.
pvaldes 5y ago
Where is Masochism in this list?
- robocat 5y ago
  The sections on laziness and being carefree imply the opposite. There is more than one quote talking about joy rather than drudgery or pain. “I was doing what I wanted to do, and there was absolutely no thought of a career. I was just having a marvelous time.” and “It might seem unfair, however, to reward a person for having so much pleasure, over the years, asking the maize to solve specific problems and then watching its response.” — Abigail Lipson on Barbara McClintock “There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower” and “Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible” and “Now that I am burned out and I’ll never accomplish anything, I’ve got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I’m going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.” - Richard Feynman “I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.” — Marie Curie “The fifth virtue that a scientist must cultivate is an appreciation for beauty. There are practical reasons to do science, but in the moment, great research is done just to do something because it’s beautiful and exemplifies enjoying that beauty. This eye for beauty is not optional! It is, like all the scientific virtues, essential for doing any kind of original research. The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because it pleases him, and it pleases him because it is beautiful. Were nature not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, life would not be worth living.” — Henri Poincaré
  - pvaldes 5y ago
    A scientist must solve problems for everybody, period. And the rest about how must behave, (how humble and grateful must be for being allowed to solve our problems)... or in what language should be an universal problem solved, (don't we have any professional translators in this planet?) or how must overcome all those --artificial-- obstacles put in their path (just because, so scientific career became an epic "hero journey in pursuit of truth", grab your pop-corns) or what party should support, or what skin tone, or type of genitals should have, or what age should have when discovering X... ... all this old tribal narrative is just plain bullshit. We are focusing in 'who' when we should focus in 'what' is discovered. Is like choosing our food by the pictures in the package and then being surprised for the not-so-awesome flavor > “I was doing what I wanted to do, and there was absolutely no thought of a career. I was just having a marvelous time.” This is the gentle message what people --expects-- from the mouth of a successful scientist. Any other simply would annoy the public in your TED talk that has come here to hear comforting words, so is out of the discussion. In the reality is a little different.
readingnews 5y ago
I wonder if these quotes are all accurate? Some of them are very good indeed.
upsidesinclude 5y ago
"I am the science." -Anthony Fauci
gwern 5y ago
I wonder if those Feynman examples are 'rubberducking' but done on other people?
fungiblecog 5y ago
Not just for scientists either. Almost every problem I experience at work has at it’s root someone who is too scared to say they don’t understand something.
lincpa 5y ago
jkhdigital 5y ago
This is a lengthy read, but I was startled enough by an observation halfway through that I thought to comment on it: after mostly quoting legendary physicists to drive home points about stupidity and arrogance, the author quotes a certain Judith Rich Harris. I only recognized the name because, in the course of reading various parenting tracts, I came across her book The Nurture Fallacy and it absolutely upended my beliefs on the subject. That she would be placed alongside Richard Feynmann as an exemplar of scientific virtue is a testament to the boldness (and truth) of her theory, but it is inconvenient enough to her field that it has been largely buried and most parents will never hear the truth.
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  Her work isn’t suppressed. It’s just not popular. People prefer to believe pretty lies. She received a major award from her professional society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Rich_Harris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Rich_Harris > In 1994 she formulated a new theory of child development, focusing on the peer group rather than the family. This formed the basis for a 1995 article in the Psychological Review,[7] which received the American Psychological Association's George A. Miller Award for an Outstanding Recent Article in General Psychology.[8] Is it dangerous to claim that parents have no power at all (other than genetic) to shape their child's personality, intelligence, or the way he or she behaves outside the family home? ... A confession: When I first made this proposal ten years ago, I didn't fully believe it myself. I took an extreme position, the null hypothesis of zero parental influence, for the sake of scientific clarity. ... The establishment's failure to shoot me down has been nothing short of astonishing. Judith Rich Harris, 2006.[9]
  - fristechill 5y ago
    I'm glad somebody has referred to truth at last because the habit of truth, according to Jacob Bronowski, is perhaps the primary scientific virtue. That is, telling and acknowledging the truth about even the minutest facts relating to one's scientific activity, whether in public print or in strictest privacy.
purplepatrick 5y ago
So, more like: Self Awareness, Naïveté, Perseverance, Emotional Distance, Vision, Skepticism, Humor
entropicgravity 5y ago
Wow, I missed my calling.

119 points by bobcostas55 5y ago

Just wonderful presentation of what values to hold for a curious, serious person trying to understand the (physical) world. Of cause, there is little bit of hyperbola on labeling some of these virtues, however, it is so enjoyable to put it this way nonetheless, and I would say does drive home the main point: the courage to be say I do no know. What was not said explicitly in the article is that all these virtues while needed in trying to understand (and find out, cut-through "bullshit") one has to hold of emotions and value judgements. And that is mighty difficult (things that we intuitively feel like should be or ought to be true). This is what B. Russell articulated so well in several of his maxims as well: "..the will to find out has to be much greater than the will to believe". As a parting remark, one can observes the exact opposite is (implicitly) demanded from researchers, and vanishingly small number of people are able to stand their ground against the current of modern scientism (which infested normal discourse, education institutions, and even research). "Selling" yourself, selling results, being vocal, advertise, publishing for sake of publishing, those things are part of a metric these days. What to do when adhering to the real virtues touched upon in this writing will essentially kill ones career?

jrd259 5y ago
Agree with your summary, but I am not impressed by the use of "stupid". Maybe "being willing to appear stupid", or "having beginner's mind" or "not making assumptions". But "stupid" is just click-bait. For that matter "laziness" too. Author says "work hard, but not all the time". But the others (Arrogance, Carefreeness, Beauty, Rebellion, Humor) all seem right to me.
- contingencies 5y ago
  In English when seeking to imply a guiltless stupidity naive is often used.
  - pksebben 5y ago
    perhaps part of the point is to inoculate the reader against guilt. I enjoy my stupidity whether or not someone else has a judgement.
balsam 5y ago
How about a synthesis of the two: “will to find something worth believing in”.

pdonis 5y ago

Of all the qualities described in this article, I think the most important is being able to live with not knowing things, as described by Feynman: "I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit and if I can’t figure it out, then I go on to something else, but I don’t have to know an answer" We humans are generally not wired to accept not knowing things; we are wired to believe some answer to any question we can think to ask, whether we actually have any real basis for an answer or not. But giving in to that temptation just means our beliefs are out of sync with reality.

hirundo 5y ago
This is particularly evident in creation myths. In answer to "where did we come from, how was the world made", instead of a shrug or some unsatisfying facts, we hear a story. And our need to understand is such that we cling to that story, no matter how bizarre. It was the Great Coyote. No, it was a war between the Sun and the Moon. No, it was the invisible Sky Fairy. Some times it takes an unusual person to hear such a story and think WTF? And decide that they just don't know.
manuelabeledo 5y ago
I have struggled with this for the longest time. My field is nowhere close to Feynman's, but still, quite frequently I have found myself wondering "why", "why does this thing work this way?", "why is this, but not that?", leading invariably down a deep rabbit hole. Sometimes it's not a complete waste of time, as I learnt about the innards of the systems I interact with. Most of the time it kind of is.
melony 5y ago
He is also a human calculator with tremendous aptitude for arithmetics. What works for him won't necessarily generalize to others.
- pdonis 5y ago

giantg2 5y ago

I'm dumb and ask stupid questions. My curiosity has only hurt me.

nanomonkey 5y ago
"What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger" -Nietzsche
- giantg2 5y ago
  Or leaves you chronically damaged/paralyzed/etc.
- circlefavshape 5y ago
  Seriously? People are still quoting this as if it's true?
wongarsu 5y ago
Nobody is born knowledgeable, and asking questions is almost always better in the long run than looking smart while staying ignorant. There there are ways to make questions sound less dumb, mostly involving that you made an effort at finding a solution. "Why is the sky blue?" sounds like a dumb question, "I saw that liquid oxygen is blue, is that why the sky is blue?" sounds much better (even though the assumption is completely wrong)
- giantg2 5y ago
  Yeah, but most of success in today's world is built off of the perception that others have of you. In fact, some of the feedback I have gotten throughout the years is that I have lots of potential, I'm smart (smarter than I really am), well spoken (for an IT guy), etc. It doesn't mean anything because they always seem to think that I should be driving every meeting or conversation. If there's another person in the meeting with more knowledge in that specific area and I agree with their direction, why would I take over? So their perception is that I'm smart, but that I lack some other quality. My perception is that I'm dumber than the other guy but just smart enough to know to defer to their expertise. It leaves me stuck and unsuccessful. I'm stupid enough to ask certain questions... which I suppose makes them stupid questions. If we are a company notorious for value shopping, and the company says we're seeing deadlines or capacity slip due to not filling open positions, and is costing the company money, risk of tech debt not being addressed... it's stupid for someone like me to question that, but I do. If it were really costing the company money, then wouldn't we increase pay or not force people back to the office to increase headcount? There seems to be a contradiction here, and the people in power don't have an answer that makes sense (possibly because there are things they can't tell a peon me).

zhoujianfu 5y ago

The programmers virtues: Impatience, Hubris, Laziness -Larry Wall

sidpatil 5y ago
https://thethreevirtues.com/ https://thethreevirtues.com/
austinjp 5y ago
Exactly what I thought of too. Very similar to the article's virtues. I wonder where they're not appropriate? Anything centered around human interaction, probably, but otherwise similar attitudes seem useful in most forms of engineering and knowledge work.

pvaldes 5y ago

Where is Masochism in this list?

robocat 5y ago
The sections on laziness and being carefree imply the opposite. There is more than one quote talking about joy rather than drudgery or pain. “I was doing what I wanted to do, and there was absolutely no thought of a career. I was just having a marvelous time.” and “It might seem unfair, however, to reward a person for having so much pleasure, over the years, asking the maize to solve specific problems and then watching its response.” — Abigail Lipson on Barbara McClintock “There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower” and “Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible” and “Now that I am burned out and I’ll never accomplish anything, I’ve got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I’m going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.” - Richard Feynman “I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.” — Marie Curie “The fifth virtue that a scientist must cultivate is an appreciation for beauty. There are practical reasons to do science, but in the moment, great research is done just to do something because it’s beautiful and exemplifies enjoying that beauty. This eye for beauty is not optional! It is, like all the scientific virtues, essential for doing any kind of original research. The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because it pleases him, and it pleases him because it is beautiful. Were nature not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, life would not be worth living.” — Henri Poincaré
- pvaldes 5y ago
  A scientist must solve problems for everybody, period. And the rest about how must behave, (how humble and grateful must be for being allowed to solve our problems)... or in what language should be an universal problem solved, (don't we have any professional translators in this planet?) or how must overcome all those --artificial-- obstacles put in their path (just because, so scientific career became an epic "hero journey in pursuit of truth", grab your pop-corns) or what party should support, or what skin tone, or type of genitals should have, or what age should have when discovering X... ... all this old tribal narrative is just plain bullshit. We are focusing in 'who' when we should focus in 'what' is discovered. Is like choosing our food by the pictures in the package and then being surprised for the not-so-awesome flavor > “I was doing what I wanted to do, and there was absolutely no thought of a career. I was just having a marvelous time.” This is the gentle message what people --expects-- from the mouth of a successful scientist. Any other simply would annoy the public in your TED talk that has come here to hear comforting words, so is out of the discussion. In the reality is a little different.

readingnews 5y ago

I wonder if these quotes are all accurate? Some of them are very good indeed.

upsidesinclude 5y ago

"I am the science." -Anthony Fauci

gwern 5y ago

I wonder if those Feynman examples are 'rubberducking' but done on other people?

fungiblecog 5y ago

Not just for scientists either. Almost every problem I experience at work has at it’s root someone who is too scared to say they don’t understand something.

lincpa 5y ago

jkhdigital 5y ago

This is a lengthy read, but I was startled enough by an observation halfway through that I thought to comment on it: after mostly quoting legendary physicists to drive home points about stupidity and arrogance, the author quotes a certain Judith Rich Harris. I only recognized the name because, in the course of reading various parenting tracts, I came across her book The Nurture Fallacy and it absolutely upended my beliefs on the subject. That she would be placed alongside Richard Feynmann as an exemplar of scientific virtue is a testament to the boldness (and truth) of her theory, but it is inconvenient enough to her field that it has been largely buried and most parents will never hear the truth.

barry-cotter 5y ago
Her work isn’t suppressed. It’s just not popular. People prefer to believe pretty lies. She received a major award from her professional society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Rich_Harris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Rich_Harris > In 1994 she formulated a new theory of child development, focusing on the peer group rather than the family. This formed the basis for a 1995 article in the Psychological Review,[7] which received the American Psychological Association's George A. Miller Award for an Outstanding Recent Article in General Psychology.[8] Is it dangerous to claim that parents have no power at all (other than genetic) to shape their child's personality, intelligence, or the way he or she behaves outside the family home? ... A confession: When I first made this proposal ten years ago, I didn't fully believe it myself. I took an extreme position, the null hypothesis of zero parental influence, for the sake of scientific clarity. ... The establishment's failure to shoot me down has been nothing short of astonishing. Judith Rich Harris, 2006.[9]
- fristechill 5y ago
  I'm glad somebody has referred to truth at last because the habit of truth, according to Jacob Bronowski, is perhaps the primary scientific virtue. That is, telling and acknowledging the truth about even the minutest facts relating to one's scientific activity, whether in public print or in strictest privacy.

purplepatrick 5y ago

So, more like: Self Awareness, Naïveté, Perseverance, Emotional Distance, Vision, Skepticism, Humor

entropicgravity 5y ago

Wow, I missed my calling.