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These trends have a long history. Halsted's 'radical mastectomy' was similar. He had an incorrect theory of cancer (centrifugal spiral) that caused a lot of un

These trends have a long history. Halsted's 'radical mastectomy' was similar. He had an incorrect theory of cancer (centrifugal spiral) that caused a lot of unnecessary harm, but it was not possible for people to push back against it because of his status in the community (iirc pushback eventually came from someone doing research in London where Halsted was less powerful). The emperor of all maladies is a great book about cancer generally which touches on this. Mendel's peas are another example - breakthrough that went ignored for 40 years because Mendel was a nobody and biologists of the time had their own nonsense theories not backed by real empiricism. Phlogiston, Elan Vital, etc. - a little different since they weren't even pretending to be empirically true. Just people making stuff up. Falling into made up tribal nonsense is the default state of humanity - even for scientists, it's hard to think independently to overcome that. At least scientists are supposed to have that as a goal, but focusing on this difficulty and how we're all affected by it does lead to better thinking imo - at least it helps recognize these failures as they're happening more quickly.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Isn't "Phlogiston" basically negative oxygen? Which is why it actually had reasonable empirical support at the time. I've read that the guy we now credit as discovering oxygen, was actually trying to (and died believing he did) create 'de-phlogistoned' air, and because there was no phlogistons in it, things burned really well in it as it sucked the phlogistons out of the burning matter even faster than normal air. The key difference is that for 'negative oxygen' to be a thing it would need negative mass as oxidised (or de-phlogistoned) materials gained weight. Just looked it up on Wikpedia, in case I was repeating urban legends: > During his lifetime, Priestley's considerable scientific reputation rested on his invention of carbonated water, his writings on electricity, and his discovery of several "airs" (gases), the most famous[7] being what Priestley dubbed "dephlogisticated air" (oxygen). Priestley's determination to defend phlogiston theory and to reject what would become the chemical revolution eventually left him isolated within the scientific community. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Priestley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Priestley
causi 4y ago
To be fair, there are a lot of exceptions to Mendel's laws and he falsified some of his data so it matched his expectations.
qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
Yes the individual is frail and easily derailed, which is why we have institutions. On whose shoulders the whole process of science rests. So less individual guilt, more answers regarding institutional failures and errors in process design. Obviously, the skinner box built from incentives and punishment, is hacked and useless at best, dangerous at worst.
- gonehome 4y ago
  I think you have it backwards - often it’s institutional power that delays disruptive results and an individual that discovers new things despite that.
  - qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
    I agree with you that disruption comes from individuals, but the institutions nourish individual types and filter for individuals. Worst of all, some institutions reward the "meta-hack" aka hacking institutions to circumvent the selection pressure (after all its what they themselves often do to thrive) and before you know it its a office full of people who are extremely good at grant hacking and bad at research. I wonder what would happen, if you would allow for 20 % of the money to be distributed at random. Like if the grant application fails, you still have a chance for a wildcard.
    - naasking 4y ago
      A sortition-like system for grants would help for sure. The problem is, how many proposals are you permitted to submit? If you flood the process you stack the deck for a random win in your favour. I think random reviews from professionals outside of a field might be possible as well, at least reviewing to what extent the data supports a hypothesis. For instance, say you had a random set of statisticians review the datasets and accompanying hypotheses for 2 or 3 competing theories in biology and cast their votes on what hypothesis seems most plausible given their assessment of the data. They wouldn't be familiar enough with the field to recognize the "leaders" that might be influencing a field politically rather than empirically. Not a perfect system for sure, so maybe someone has a better idea.
hinkley 4y ago
This is one of the primary arguments against immortality as well. If Newton were still alive we'd be arguing about why GPS satellites get clock skew and gravitational lensing.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  And, uh... what are the arguments for immortality?
kspacewalk2 4y ago
Another good example is the deciphering of Maya script. Yuri Knorozov did it[0], but who was he? Some Soviet nobody, so the field treated him with disdain and upheld the nonsense theories of the leading Mayanist, J. Eric Thompson[1]. Until Thompson died, that is. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Knorozov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Knorozov [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Eric_S._Thompson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Eric_S._Thompson
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  hahaha when I saw the name I thought "this the guy with the cat?" and then clicked through and it is! Why did I know about this guy, but only in the context of the cat?
  - Tao3300 4y ago
    Proof of reincarnation right there. That man came back as Grumpy Cat.
dzdt 4y ago
Mendel faked his data. Its ironic, I think you intended him as an example in the opposite direction. He is an example where he is famous for having the right idea, but modern analysis statistically proves his data were too good to be true. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27578843/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27578843/
- GregarianChild 4y ago
  Did he? From the abstract: "my analysis could not clearly determine whether the bias was caused by misclassifying ambiguous phenotypes or deliberate falsification of the results."
- dekhn 4y ago
  More correctly, it's believed he picked several traits that segregated independently, allowing his demonstration of mendelian genetics to be clearer, while leaving some more murky evidence unpublished. Whether this is a hallmark of a cheater or a genius scientist, is up for the historians to decide, but it's obvious he was correct in the long run, although his understanding of genetics is a far cry from our current understanding of molecular biology.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

Isn't "Phlogiston" basically negative oxygen? Which is why it actually had reasonable empirical support at the time. I've read that the guy we now credit as discovering oxygen, was actually trying to (and died believing he did) create 'de-phlogistoned' air, and because there was no phlogistons in it, things burned really well in it as it sucked the phlogistons out of the burning matter even faster than normal air. The key difference is that for 'negative oxygen' to be a thing it would need negative mass as oxidised (or de-phlogistoned) materials gained weight. Just looked it up on Wikpedia, in case I was repeating urban legends: > During his lifetime, Priestley's considerable scientific reputation rested on his invention of carbonated water, his writings on electricity, and his discovery of several "airs" (gases), the most famous[7] being what Priestley dubbed "dephlogisticated air" (oxygen). Priestley's determination to defend phlogiston theory and to reject what would become the chemical revolution eventually left him isolated within the scientific community. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Priestley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Priestley

causi 4y ago

To be fair, there are a lot of exceptions to Mendel's laws and he falsified some of his data so it matched his expectations.

qikInNdOutReply 4y ago

Yes the individual is frail and easily derailed, which is why we have institutions. On whose shoulders the whole process of science rests. So less individual guilt, more answers regarding institutional failures and errors in process design. Obviously, the skinner box built from incentives and punishment, is hacked and useless at best, dangerous at worst.

gonehome 4y ago
I think you have it backwards - often it’s institutional power that delays disruptive results and an individual that discovers new things despite that.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  I agree with you that disruption comes from individuals, but the institutions nourish individual types and filter for individuals. Worst of all, some institutions reward the "meta-hack" aka hacking institutions to circumvent the selection pressure (after all its what they themselves often do to thrive) and before you know it its a office full of people who are extremely good at grant hacking and bad at research. I wonder what would happen, if you would allow for 20 % of the money to be distributed at random. Like if the grant application fails, you still have a chance for a wildcard.
  - naasking 4y ago
    A sortition-like system for grants would help for sure. The problem is, how many proposals are you permitted to submit? If you flood the process you stack the deck for a random win in your favour. I think random reviews from professionals outside of a field might be possible as well, at least reviewing to what extent the data supports a hypothesis. For instance, say you had a random set of statisticians review the datasets and accompanying hypotheses for 2 or 3 competing theories in biology and cast their votes on what hypothesis seems most plausible given their assessment of the data. They wouldn't be familiar enough with the field to recognize the "leaders" that might be influencing a field politically rather than empirically. Not a perfect system for sure, so maybe someone has a better idea.

hinkley 4y ago

This is one of the primary arguments against immortality as well. If Newton were still alive we'd be arguing about why GPS satellites get clock skew and gravitational lensing.

JohnBooty 4y ago
And, uh... what are the arguments for immortality?

kspacewalk2 4y ago

Another good example is the deciphering of Maya script. Yuri Knorozov did it[0], but who was he? Some Soviet nobody, so the field treated him with disdain and upheld the nonsense theories of the leading Mayanist, J. Eric Thompson[1]. Until Thompson died, that is. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Knorozov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Knorozov [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Eric_S._Thompson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Eric_S._Thompson

giraffe_lady 4y ago
hahaha when I saw the name I thought "this the guy with the cat?" and then clicked through and it is! Why did I know about this guy, but only in the context of the cat?
- Tao3300 4y ago
  Proof of reincarnation right there. That man came back as Grumpy Cat.

dzdt 4y ago

Mendel faked his data. Its ironic, I think you intended him as an example in the opposite direction. He is an example where he is famous for having the right idea, but modern analysis statistically proves his data were too good to be true. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27578843/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27578843/

GregarianChild 4y ago
Did he? From the abstract: "my analysis could not clearly determine whether the bias was caused by misclassifying ambiguous phenotypes or deliberate falsification of the results."
dekhn 4y ago
More correctly, it's believed he picked several traits that segregated independently, allowing his demonstration of mendelian genetics to be clearer, while leaving some more murky evidence unpublished. Whether this is a hallmark of a cheater or a genius scientist, is up for the historians to decide, but it's obvious he was correct in the long run, although his understanding of genetics is a far cry from our current understanding of molecular biology.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]