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Experimental technique development and pushing the cutting edge of current state of the art techniques is a phenomena you can see everywhere in human society. I

Experimental technique development and pushing the cutting edge of current state of the art techniques is a phenomena you can see everywhere in human society. It is there in every field of creative endeavor humans engage in, which I would say research is one of. Not only would I say that research isn't special, but I would also say that, just like every other field of creative endeavor that doesn't intrinsically bring a lot of money, those who write the checks (and those who focus on currying their favor) call the shots and sit at the center of influence networks and control the flow and direction of creative production. It's not that I disagree with your fairly broad conclusions (that intrinsic variation in human capability exists) but I don't know if you are accurately describing intelligence, academics, the corporate world, or any of the things based on how you are interrelating them in your comment. I take issue with what I see to be a lot of odd presumptions in your comment: (1) the concept of general human intelligence (which maps cleanly across all capabilities) is only realistic (1a) it can be be cleanly measured (1b) it can be used to neatly order disciplines by practitioner intelligence, and (1c) it is immutable (2) the bounded class-like environment usably maps performance to a capability to successfully conduct research in an unbounded academic research environment, and (3) some suitably generic conception of "intelligence based capability" exists which can accurately rank various fields of theoretical or applied research skills (4) that if you rank these fields of research by the intelligence level of its average practitioners, academic research requires world class intelligence, higher than what is demanded by startups and the corporate world, with starting a family dead last I think each of these assumptions are very optimistic, and the conclusion, that not everyone is meant to be world class, is trivially correct enough to be empty. Of course not everyone is meant to be world class; that is the definition of world class, that its individuals rank first in the world. It doesn't tell you anything about how people get there, or what you can actually do to influence your ability or that of someone else to get there. In every one of the fields you actually talked about (athletics, research, startups, corporate world), it's not enough to just have raw biological ingredients for high performance. It is a combination of: a) raw biological ingredients in the candidate to have capacity for some specific mastery b) exposure, growing up, to what that specific mastery looks like c) oversight, tutelage and mentorship by senior practitioners with demonstrated world class specific mastery d) a cohesive strategy guiding a playbook of tactics (likely designed in combination with c) to keep rate of skill improvement consistently high enough to efficiently approach e) intentional, consistent, effective practice by the candidate f) a pipeline of high value opportunities to develop in the course of pursuing mastery As with research, these are the raw ingredients necessary for success in any field of creative endeavor humans engage in. The vast majority of these factors do not include the biological "raw intelligence" -- and it's not that it's useless, it's that it is necessary but insufficient. And so you can and will often see practitioners with differentially somewhat less raw chops and somewhat more tenacity or discipline outperform and develop better mastery than practitioners with the converse. Plenty of geniuses failed to achieve anything with that genius besides misery and zero outcomes. It takes a lot more than just being smart to truly be world-class at anything in 2022.

xyzzyz 4y ago
> Not only would I say that research isn't special, but I would also say that, just like every other field of creative endeavor that doesn't intrinsically bring a lot of money, those who write the checks (and those who focus on currying their favor) call the shots and sit at the center of influence networks and control the flow and direction of creative production. I definitely agree, but at the same time, those who call the shots did not get there by accident either. > I take issue with what I see to be a lot of odd presumptions in your comment: > (1) the concept of general human intelligence (...) Sure, this concept is not perfect. However, do we have any better alternative than using it, along with past performance, for the purpose of predicting future performance? The answer is, to anyone who pays attention, clearly "no". It is easy to criticize and to repeat platitudes about late bloomers and the like, what is harder is to make an actual hiring decision, when the goal is to maximize quality of the output of the research group. At some point, if you can't cut it, your research career will be over, and if that's to happen, it's really best for you if that happens sooner rather than later. > (2) the bounded class-like environment usably maps performance to a capability to successfully conduct research in an unbounded academic research environment, and Where did I said anything about "class-like environment"? If you read my comment carefully, you'll observe that I discussed "obtaining much better results, understanding things more quickly and getting better ideas", not getting higher scores on exams. It is worth mentioning, though, that people who get higher scores on exams also tend to enjoy better success in an unbounded academic research environment. > (3) some suitably generic conception of "intelligence based capability" exists which can accurately rank various fields of theoretical or applied research skills > (4) that if you rank these fields of research by the intelligence level of its average practitioners, academic research requires world class intelligence, higher than what is demanded by startups and the corporate world, with starting a family dead last You're constructing a complex strawman to respond to a very simple advice of "if you're not cutting it in academia, better quit early rather than later, and don't expect that you can make it through hard effort alone". My advice in no way implies these "odd presumptions". > In every one of the fields you actually talked about (athletics, research, startups, corporate world), it's not enough to just have raw biological ingredients for high performance. It is a combination of: (...) Indeed, and if the field is professional football, and you tell someone that "if you're not cutting it professional football, better quit early rather than later, and don't expect that you can make it through hard effort alone", this is in no way controversial, in fact it is rather common sense. When the activity is intellectual, rather than physical, however, people tend to react more emotionally, or allow their ideology to overshadow some hard facts about human existence.

xyzzyz 4y ago

> Not only would I say that research isn't special, but I would also say that, just like every other field of creative endeavor that doesn't intrinsically bring a lot of money, those who write the checks (and those who focus on currying their favor) call the shots and sit at the center of influence networks and control the flow and direction of creative production. I definitely agree, but at the same time, those who call the shots did not get there by accident either. > I take issue with what I see to be a lot of odd presumptions in your comment: > (1) the concept of general human intelligence (...) Sure, this concept is not perfect. However, do we have any better alternative than using it, along with past performance, for the purpose of predicting future performance? The answer is, to anyone who pays attention, clearly "no". It is easy to criticize and to repeat platitudes about late bloomers and the like, what is harder is to make an actual hiring decision, when the goal is to maximize quality of the output of the research group. At some point, if you can't cut it, your research career will be over, and if that's to happen, it's really best for you if that happens sooner rather than later. > (2) the bounded class-like environment usably maps performance to a capability to successfully conduct research in an unbounded academic research environment, and Where did I said anything about "class-like environment"? If you read my comment carefully, you'll observe that I discussed "obtaining much better results, understanding things more quickly and getting better ideas", not getting higher scores on exams. It is worth mentioning, though, that people who get higher scores on exams also tend to enjoy better success in an unbounded academic research environment. > (3) some suitably generic conception of "intelligence based capability" exists which can accurately rank various fields of theoretical or applied research skills > (4) that if you rank these fields of research by the intelligence level of its average practitioners, academic research requires world class intelligence, higher than what is demanded by startups and the corporate world, with starting a family dead last You're constructing a complex strawman to respond to a very simple advice of "if you're not cutting it in academia, better quit early rather than later, and don't expect that you can make it through hard effort alone". My advice in no way implies these "odd presumptions". > In every one of the fields you actually talked about (athletics, research, startups, corporate world), it's not enough to just have raw biological ingredients for high performance. It is a combination of: (...) Indeed, and if the field is professional football, and you tell someone that "if you're not cutting it professional football, better quit early rather than later, and don't expect that you can make it through hard effort alone", this is in no way controversial, in fact it is rather common sense. When the activity is intellectual, rather than physical, however, people tend to react more emotionally, or allow their ideology to overshadow some hard facts about human existence.