3 ms·

>But he’s on the side of science and reason, so he’s our ego-maniac. Humility and the ability to recognise and accept when we're wrong is one of the fundamenta

>But he’s on the side of science and reason, so he’s our ego-maniac. Humility and the ability to recognise and accept when we're wrong is one of the fundamental characteristics of science. People with big egos are the enemies of science.

fristechill 5y ago
Humility before the truth is vital but not necessarily humility as expressed in one's public statements. Indeed psychoticism was identified by the psychologist Hans Eysenck as one of the traits of genius, including scientific genius. Psychoticism is a package which includes associative thinking, creativity, disagreeableness, lack of empathy, antisocial nature, introversion, coldness, aggression, high self-esteem. The problem is that most people are afraid of giving offence, of being ostracised by their colleagues and so on, and so they self-censor their original thoughts and never create anything fundamentally new and important. So it's unsurprising that most of the great scientists in history had very difficult personalities (Faraday may have been an exception). I think the optimal approach is to study and benefit from the work of geniuses but have as little to do with them personally as possible. Leave them alone to their work. Of course the fact that someone has a difficult personality does not mean he is a great thinker. However science has a mechanism for dealing with that via the publication system, where ideas that are wrong are eventually criticised and ultimately forgotten.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
EricE 5y ago
"People with big egos are the enemies of science." lol - history doesn't agree with this AT ALL.
- qorrect 5y ago
  Written history is a re-creation of past events and big egos are entertaining. Claude Shannon coined the word bit and fathered Information Theory. But very few know his name, despite his huge influence on our daily lives. This is a long winded way of saying, written history is probably half right at best. Ten years ago I watched a pay-per-view boxing match. At the end, the fighter said "I'm not the greatest but I'll fight the greatest". 2 minutes later the local news misquoted him as saying "I am the greatest".
posix_me_less 5y ago
You're describing generally positive traits, not specific to science. Science was pushed forward by many kinds of people, many of them obnoxious, arrogant, racists, etc. You can't disqualify Wolfram as scientist by pointing to his bad personality characteristics.

fristechill 5y ago

Humility before the truth is vital but not necessarily humility as expressed in one's public statements. Indeed psychoticism was identified by the psychologist Hans Eysenck as one of the traits of genius, including scientific genius. Psychoticism is a package which includes associative thinking, creativity, disagreeableness, lack of empathy, antisocial nature, introversion, coldness, aggression, high self-esteem. The problem is that most people are afraid of giving offence, of being ostracised by their colleagues and so on, and so they self-censor their original thoughts and never create anything fundamentally new and important. So it's unsurprising that most of the great scientists in history had very difficult personalities (Faraday may have been an exception). I think the optimal approach is to study and benefit from the work of geniuses but have as little to do with them personally as possible. Leave them alone to their work. Of course the fact that someone has a difficult personality does not mean he is a great thinker. However science has a mechanism for dealing with that via the publication system, where ideas that are wrong are eventually criticised and ultimately forgotten.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

EricE 5y ago

"People with big egos are the enemies of science." lol - history doesn't agree with this AT ALL.

qorrect 5y ago
Written history is a re-creation of past events and big egos are entertaining. Claude Shannon coined the word bit and fathered Information Theory. But very few know his name, despite his huge influence on our daily lives. This is a long winded way of saying, written history is probably half right at best. Ten years ago I watched a pay-per-view boxing match. At the end, the fighter said "I'm not the greatest but I'll fight the greatest". 2 minutes later the local news misquoted him as saying "I am the greatest".

posix_me_less 5y ago

You're describing generally positive traits, not specific to science. Science was pushed forward by many kinds of people, many of them obnoxious, arrogant, racists, etc. You can't disqualify Wolfram as scientist by pointing to his bad personality characteristics.