6 ms·

When I read this post, I imagined the author talking about hard science like physics, chemistry, and other fields that require pretty significant investment in

by madrox 3y ago

When I read this post, I imagined the author talking about hard science like physics, chemistry, and other fields that require pretty significant investment in proper tools and a strong understanding of deeply complex topics that have been battle-hardened over decades. I don't think the problem with those fields is that we need more amateur cooks in the kitchen. However, this post was written by a post-doc in social psychology, and is employed in the management division of a business school. I'm ready to believe that a rank amateur could walk into his field and do science just as well as anyone else, and this post makes a lot more sense.

hooverd 3y ago
Turns out it's harder to break into a field when failing means breaking the half million dollar piece of equipment until the vendor can ship out a replacement part!
- r0uv3n 3y ago
  Even though I disagree with the point of your parent comment, their argument can also be made for mathematics vs social sciences, and those don't differ on how much budget they require.
iamhamm 3y ago
I had a similar thought about the hard sciences (physics graduate dropout) and the inaccessibility of hard sciences to amateurs. Then I moved to the desert and got interested in geology and much to my surprise learned there's all sort of stuff in geology that is available. It's the result of the need to physically go look at rocks (at least for structural). I'm currently working on a new description of the strata at the end of my street because the highest resolution stratigraphic map fails to correctly delineate at least two units of bedrock - eg the map does not show them, but they appear to be present. To figure it out, I've had to take several road trips to compare my neighborhood rock to the exposed units in those locations. I find it quite fun and entertaining. Meanwhile, a colleague of mine found a new species of dinosaur using a radiometric detector he designed and got a patent on (https://ktar.com/story/4298984/arizona-volunteers-unearth-75-million-year-old-dinosaur-in-new-mexico/ https://ktar.com/story/4298984/arizona-volunteers-unearth-75...). There's still some real science out there if you want it. :)
- godelski 3y ago
  I'm not sure I'd put geology on the same level as say physics. Similarly I wouldn't put astronomy and astrophysics at the same level. This is not to say that there aren't many problems that can be solved by amateurs, but that the utility is quite disproportionate. I also wouldn't say that soft sciences aren't "real", but rather that they have higher rates of error due to the lack of precision and mathematical theory. But I also wouldn't say that you need a degree to contribute to any of the hard sciences. The formal education's utilities mainly lie in guidance, structure, connections, and probably most importantly, the ability to dedicate your full time to your education. Being able to ask someone for help is a significant accelerator. All the math you need to get through a bachelor's, and generally even a masters, is available via 20+ year old textbooks. The PhD is a lot of self study too, and a lot of isolation. But at that point you should have a reasonable idea of direction, although getting lost is common and not necessarily a bad thing. It's probably becoming much easier to do this too given that not only are lectures and piratable textbooks are online, but so are the whole educational structure of a degree, which prevents the amateur from getting lost. Honestly, I think one of the biggest leaps our species will make will happen when we reach post scarcity. Either we'll be glued to the screens or we'll all have the freedom to pursue our passions. Having the ability to dedicate all your time to your education, art, or whatever without worry about your basic needs is quite liberating (even more than school). Maybe even a large social split between the groups. But only time will tell.
  - rednerrus 3y ago
    The same things that create utility in the hard sciences are a liability because they limit creativity. You put a lot a risk by looking foolish.
    - godelski 3y ago
      I actually disagree with this. Science requires a substantial amount of creativity. In fact, they are necessary. The nature of breakthroughs requisite thinking outside the box and breaking from convention. What I would say are real limits to creativity are the arbitrary and absurd evaluation metrics we use. Publish or perish paradigm encourages quick work rather than good work, which correlates with a decrease of novelty and substance. Makes the process more incremental. It also encourages railroading as exploration requires more time. The review process also exacerbates these problems, as the system is not actually aligned with the goals. They are arbitrary noisy filters rather than quality filters, and we have substantial evidence that, putting it nicely, reviewers are good at identifying bad works but not good at identifying good works (i.e. default to reject). This causes one to continually rework a project rather than moving on or even making it better, as the feedback generally isn't about how to make the work better and each set of reviewers wants to add more and more. The pursuit of novelty is also not only fundamentally anti-scientific but the basis of an existential crisis. To get funding or to pass review, we must be creative in convincing reviewers that we are clever while ideas generally far more obvious after they are revealed to you (regardless of lack of prior works). The need to innovate also prevents replication, which is the basis of science! It is far more difficult, often nearly impossible, to get funding or even approval to replicate works. Science is the process of ruling things out, not confirming things. Each replication has its own set of noise and biases, and this stochastic nature helps reveal hidden confounders. It is also quite essential to the learning process and failing to perform this task results in information being passed like a game of telephone. But by nature, science is anti-authority and highly creative. You _must_ challenge pre-existing notions (trust but verify) and you must think outside the box. Though I do not blame anyone for missing this given the structures and incentives (shackles) the bureaucratic system has imposed upon us.
mikewarot 3y ago
Measuring things precisely is way cheaper than it's ever been. You can weigh micrograms without too much effort.[1] You can buy time/frequency standards for $200 or so that time to the national standards.[2] Float glass is a cheap and relatively flat surface plate that you can buy almost anywhere. Lasers, detectors, computing, everything is dirt cheap compared to the past. If you have something you want to make, or measure, this is likely the easiest time ever to do so. Don't worry about being at the leading edge, just do something, have fun, and you might be the first to notice some weird little quirk that turns out to be important. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta7nlkI5K5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta7nlkI5K5g [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_disciplined_oscillator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_disciplined_oscillator
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  [calibration not included]
  - mikewarot 3y ago
    You can buy an "economy" set of NIST traceable gage blocks for about $120[1], that are accurate to 50 millionth's of an inch. Metric sets are also available in the same price range. Fluke has an entire line of NIST traceable tools[2] For a stiff fee, you can ship things to NIST to have them calibrated[3], or buy standard samples. In the US, NIST traceable calibration can be had for almost anything. I suspect the same is true (calibration back to a national standard) in most of the world. You can get GPS disciplined clocks for about $200, the long term stability of those are tied to UTC, which is as good as it gets. If you can afford to spend more, there are devices that can input a laser, and tell you the frequency of that light, down to 1 Hz resolution. They use optical combs, and a lot of physics, and have an internal atomic clock reference. --- My point is that we have an amazingly affordable web of precision that we can fall back on, this allows people spread across the globe to build interchangeable parts that will fit properly on a regular basis. It is freaking amazing. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Shars-Rectangular-traceable-certificate-303-5311C/dp/B00HG0CSJS/ref=sr_1_3 https://www.amazon.com/Shars-Rectangular-traceable-certifica... [2] https://www.fluke-direct.com/category/fluke-nist-certified-tools https://www.fluke-direct.com/category/fluke-nist-certified-t... [3] https://www.nist.gov/calibrations https://www.nist.gov/calibrations
johnnyworker 3y ago
Doing something professionally just means doing it for money and with the authorization of others, not necessarily doing it well. We all know about professional software developers who are forced by their profession, that is, the fact that they do it under contract X for company Y managed by person Z, to do things that they know are complete crap. I mean, SAP is professional. Microsoft or Google lock-in? Highly professional! Shiny even. Supporting RSS? Not professional. A gimmick you're allowed, like what you do outside of work. Or even more brutal: Ignaz Semmelweis. That he was a professional didn't help him, the super mega cereal professionals undid his efforts without blinking, and without anyone even realizing it at the time. At the same time, people just make stuff up without any rigor, just take climate change denial and whatnot. So it's not that not being a professional is any positive indicator, either. I just think that if you do something others don't already do, they cannot authorize you, by definition. They don't know what they're even talking about, while thinking they do. Not their fault, not your fault, but if you don't do you, "you" will not be done, and the world will never know. Of course, in the end the results have to hold up, my point is not to give license to "questioning everything" as code for just spouting non-sequiturs. But I wouldn't dissuade "randoms" from pursuing scientific fancies because the professionals got it, because frankly, they don't. No single person or group or class does. The main point of the essay is that it takes all sorts, and that you shouldn't put your eggs into one basket. IMO "professionals" is one single basket, the way everybody and their dog is streamlined and appropriate these days. last but not least: > However these 3 years of work in isolation, when I was thrown onto my own resources, following guidelines which I myself had spontaneously invented, instilled in me a strong degree of confidence, unassuming yet enduring, in my ability to do mathematics, which owes nothing to any consensus or to the fashions which pass as law. [..] > By this I mean to say: to reach out in my own way to the things I wished to learn, rather than relying on the notions of the consensus, overt or tacit, coming from a more or less extended clan of which I found myself a member, or which for any other reason laid claim to be taken as an authority. This silent consensus had informed me, both at the lyé and at the university, that one shouldn't bother worrying about what was really meant when using a term like "volume", which was "obviously self-evident", "generally known", "unproblematic", etc. I'd gone over their heads, almost as a matter of course, even as Lesbesgue himself had, several decades before, gone over their heads. It is in this gesture of "going beyond", to be something in oneself rather than the pawn of a consensus, the refusal to stay within a rigid circle that others have drawn around one - it is in this solitary act that one finds true creativity. All other things follow as a matter of course. -- Alexandre Grothendieck, "The Life of a Mathematician - Reflections and Bearing Witness" (1986) edit: something I just stumbled across, same point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbmJkMhmrVI&t=41m14s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbmJkMhmrVI&t=41m14s
dr_dshiv 3y ago
Yeah, but in social psychology you need human subjects ethics approval. What’s the plan for that? No oversight, a public IRB, etc? Admittedly, is a huge impediment to scientific research—you have to jump through so many hoops before you are allowed to talk to people. It’s kind of crazy.
- mistermann 3y ago
  Do the research outside the (sometimes dangerous) restrictions imposed on study and cognition by science.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
growingkittens 3y ago
Soft sciences are easy to look down on because science lacks the systemic tools required to understand systems as a whole. The scientific method is a systematic, step by step process that examines components of reality: reality which is made of interconnected systems. Both systemic and systematic approaches are required to understand reality [1]. The lack of a systemic method results in a "soft" science that is complex, ambiguous, and inconsistent. The fields within it are in the wild west, looking for a direction. Humans have a habit of looking at something unfamiliar and thinking to themselves," I don't understand it, therefore, it is dumb." Ambiguity can be difficult to handle. Many people take comfort in achieving an objective truth. [1]"Systems Engineering: A systemic and systematic methodology for solving complex problems." Joseph Kasser, 2019. p. 17
- StrictDabbler 3y ago
  I respect the soft sciences. They ask questions to which we need answers. They may sometimes fall short or lack rigor but it's not like we have an alternative way to address those issues. At the same time I am disturbed by a soft scientist recommending basement chemistry as a remedy for publication bias. YouTube has already inspired a generation of basement chemists making bromine tubes or dipping things in hydrofluoric acid. It is difficult and expensive to safely set up a residential space for chemical experimentation. It is also almost impossible to know everything required without already having become both an academic and having been involved in the construction of a university lab, at which point you no longer need to set up in your basement. Where does your drain go? Where will you store chemicals you can't dump in the drain? What's the drain pipe made of? Will your air conditioning overwhelm your ventilation hood? Could your return duct spill fumes into the main living space? Is all your electrical and ventilation equipment explosion proof? Deionized water, PPE, emergency shower, cleaning protocols... the list just goes on and the requirements are written in blood. Even in a fully equipped space with a trained staff chemistry is inherently risky. It really shouldn't be performed in a building where people have beds. Botany, entomology, astronomy, geology, sure. All these fields just need more eyes on them. Perhaps biochemistry if you are rigorous about never using volatile reagents, sure. But we don't have much real use for basement chemists screwing around with basement chemistry.
somenameforme 3y ago
At least in theory, I don't really think this distinction makes much sense. As but the most obvious example, a number of Einstein's most fundamental papers (including special relativity, and mass-energy equivalence) were published as an "amateur", while he was working as a low level patent inspector. And this is from a time when knowledge was quite difficult to access, meaning there really was quite a meaningful distinction between "amateur" and "professional." Now a days that distinction is largely gone. One can access effectively infinite information online, including access to educational resources from the most well regarded institutions that exist. One benefit of "amateur" science is that one can endlessly chase exceptionally improbable ideas. Publish or perish, bias against negative results, grants gained as a performance metric, and other factors mean the science that the overwhelming majority of academic researchers, let alone corporate, can pursue is quite limited.

by madrox 3y ago

hooverd 3y ago

Turns out it's harder to break into a field when failing means breaking the half million dollar piece of equipment until the vendor can ship out a replacement part!

r0uv3n 3y ago
Even though I disagree with the point of your parent comment, their argument can also be made for mathematics vs social sciences, and those don't differ on how much budget they require.

iamhamm 3y ago

I had a similar thought about the hard sciences (physics graduate dropout) and the inaccessibility of hard sciences to amateurs. Then I moved to the desert and got interested in geology and much to my surprise learned there's all sort of stuff in geology that is available. It's the result of the need to physically go look at rocks (at least for structural). I'm currently working on a new description of the strata at the end of my street because the highest resolution stratigraphic map fails to correctly delineate at least two units of bedrock - eg the map does not show them, but they appear to be present. To figure it out, I've had to take several road trips to compare my neighborhood rock to the exposed units in those locations. I find it quite fun and entertaining. Meanwhile, a colleague of mine found a new species of dinosaur using a radiometric detector he designed and got a patent on (https://ktar.com/story/4298984/arizona-volunteers-unearth-75-million-year-old-dinosaur-in-new-mexico/ https://ktar.com/story/4298984/arizona-volunteers-unearth-75...). There's still some real science out there if you want it. :)

godelski 3y ago
I'm not sure I'd put geology on the same level as say physics. Similarly I wouldn't put astronomy and astrophysics at the same level. This is not to say that there aren't many problems that can be solved by amateurs, but that the utility is quite disproportionate. I also wouldn't say that soft sciences aren't "real", but rather that they have higher rates of error due to the lack of precision and mathematical theory. But I also wouldn't say that you need a degree to contribute to any of the hard sciences. The formal education's utilities mainly lie in guidance, structure, connections, and probably most importantly, the ability to dedicate your full time to your education. Being able to ask someone for help is a significant accelerator. All the math you need to get through a bachelor's, and generally even a masters, is available via 20+ year old textbooks. The PhD is a lot of self study too, and a lot of isolation. But at that point you should have a reasonable idea of direction, although getting lost is common and not necessarily a bad thing. It's probably becoming much easier to do this too given that not only are lectures and piratable textbooks are online, but so are the whole educational structure of a degree, which prevents the amateur from getting lost. Honestly, I think one of the biggest leaps our species will make will happen when we reach post scarcity. Either we'll be glued to the screens or we'll all have the freedom to pursue our passions. Having the ability to dedicate all your time to your education, art, or whatever without worry about your basic needs is quite liberating (even more than school). Maybe even a large social split between the groups. But only time will tell.
- rednerrus 3y ago
  The same things that create utility in the hard sciences are a liability because they limit creativity. You put a lot a risk by looking foolish.
  - godelski 3y ago
    I actually disagree with this. Science requires a substantial amount of creativity. In fact, they are necessary. The nature of breakthroughs requisite thinking outside the box and breaking from convention. What I would say are real limits to creativity are the arbitrary and absurd evaluation metrics we use. Publish or perish paradigm encourages quick work rather than good work, which correlates with a decrease of novelty and substance. Makes the process more incremental. It also encourages railroading as exploration requires more time. The review process also exacerbates these problems, as the system is not actually aligned with the goals. They are arbitrary noisy filters rather than quality filters, and we have substantial evidence that, putting it nicely, reviewers are good at identifying bad works but not good at identifying good works (i.e. default to reject). This causes one to continually rework a project rather than moving on or even making it better, as the feedback generally isn't about how to make the work better and each set of reviewers wants to add more and more. The pursuit of novelty is also not only fundamentally anti-scientific but the basis of an existential crisis. To get funding or to pass review, we must be creative in convincing reviewers that we are clever while ideas generally far more obvious after they are revealed to you (regardless of lack of prior works). The need to innovate also prevents replication, which is the basis of science! It is far more difficult, often nearly impossible, to get funding or even approval to replicate works. Science is the process of ruling things out, not confirming things. Each replication has its own set of noise and biases, and this stochastic nature helps reveal hidden confounders. It is also quite essential to the learning process and failing to perform this task results in information being passed like a game of telephone. But by nature, science is anti-authority and highly creative. You _must_ challenge pre-existing notions (trust but verify) and you must think outside the box. Though I do not blame anyone for missing this given the structures and incentives (shackles) the bureaucratic system has imposed upon us.

mikewarot 3y ago

Measuring things precisely is way cheaper than it's ever been. You can weigh micrograms without too much effort.[1] You can buy time/frequency standards for $200 or so that time to the national standards.[2] Float glass is a cheap and relatively flat surface plate that you can buy almost anywhere. Lasers, detectors, computing, everything is dirt cheap compared to the past. If you have something you want to make, or measure, this is likely the easiest time ever to do so. Don't worry about being at the leading edge, just do something, have fun, and you might be the first to notice some weird little quirk that turns out to be important. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta7nlkI5K5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta7nlkI5K5g [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_disciplined_oscillator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_disciplined_oscillator

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
[calibration not included]
- mikewarot 3y ago
  You can buy an "economy" set of NIST traceable gage blocks for about $120[1], that are accurate to 50 millionth's of an inch. Metric sets are also available in the same price range. Fluke has an entire line of NIST traceable tools[2] For a stiff fee, you can ship things to NIST to have them calibrated[3], or buy standard samples. In the US, NIST traceable calibration can be had for almost anything. I suspect the same is true (calibration back to a national standard) in most of the world. You can get GPS disciplined clocks for about $200, the long term stability of those are tied to UTC, which is as good as it gets. If you can afford to spend more, there are devices that can input a laser, and tell you the frequency of that light, down to 1 Hz resolution. They use optical combs, and a lot of physics, and have an internal atomic clock reference. --- My point is that we have an amazingly affordable web of precision that we can fall back on, this allows people spread across the globe to build interchangeable parts that will fit properly on a regular basis. It is freaking amazing. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Shars-Rectangular-traceable-certificate-303-5311C/dp/B00HG0CSJS/ref=sr_1_3 https://www.amazon.com/Shars-Rectangular-traceable-certifica... [2] https://www.fluke-direct.com/category/fluke-nist-certified-tools https://www.fluke-direct.com/category/fluke-nist-certified-t... [3] https://www.nist.gov/calibrations https://www.nist.gov/calibrations

johnnyworker 3y ago

Doing something professionally just means doing it for money and with the authorization of others, not necessarily doing it well. We all know about professional software developers who are forced by their profession, that is, the fact that they do it under contract X for company Y managed by person Z, to do things that they know are complete crap. I mean, SAP is professional. Microsoft or Google lock-in? Highly professional! Shiny even. Supporting RSS? Not professional. A gimmick you're allowed, like what you do outside of work. Or even more brutal: Ignaz Semmelweis. That he was a professional didn't help him, the super mega cereal professionals undid his efforts without blinking, and without anyone even realizing it at the time. At the same time, people just make stuff up without any rigor, just take climate change denial and whatnot. So it's not that not being a professional is any positive indicator, either. I just think that if you do something others don't already do, they cannot authorize you, by definition. They don't know what they're even talking about, while thinking they do. Not their fault, not your fault, but if you don't do you, "you" will not be done, and the world will never know. Of course, in the end the results have to hold up, my point is not to give license to "questioning everything" as code for just spouting non-sequiturs. But I wouldn't dissuade "randoms" from pursuing scientific fancies because the professionals got it, because frankly, they don't. No single person or group or class does. The main point of the essay is that it takes all sorts, and that you shouldn't put your eggs into one basket. IMO "professionals" is one single basket, the way everybody and their dog is streamlined and appropriate these days. last but not least: > However these 3 years of work in isolation, when I was thrown onto my own resources, following guidelines which I myself had spontaneously invented, instilled in me a strong degree of confidence, unassuming yet enduring, in my ability to do mathematics, which owes nothing to any consensus or to the fashions which pass as law. [..] > By this I mean to say: to reach out in my own way to the things I wished to learn, rather than relying on the notions of the consensus, overt or tacit, coming from a more or less extended clan of which I found myself a member, or which for any other reason laid claim to be taken as an authority. This silent consensus had informed me, both at the lyé and at the university, that one shouldn't bother worrying about what was really meant when using a term like "volume", which was "obviously self-evident", "generally known", "unproblematic", etc. I'd gone over their heads, almost as a matter of course, even as Lesbesgue himself had, several decades before, gone over their heads. It is in this gesture of "going beyond", to be something in oneself rather than the pawn of a consensus, the refusal to stay within a rigid circle that others have drawn around one - it is in this solitary act that one finds true creativity. All other things follow as a matter of course. -- Alexandre Grothendieck, "The Life of a Mathematician - Reflections and Bearing Witness" (1986) edit: something I just stumbled across, same point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbmJkMhmrVI&t=41m14s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbmJkMhmrVI&t=41m14s

dr_dshiv 3y ago

Yeah, but in social psychology you need human subjects ethics approval. What’s the plan for that? No oversight, a public IRB, etc? Admittedly, is a huge impediment to scientific research—you have to jump through so many hoops before you are allowed to talk to people. It’s kind of crazy.

mistermann 3y ago
Do the research outside the (sometimes dangerous) restrictions imposed on study and cognition by science.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

growingkittens 3y ago

Soft sciences are easy to look down on because science lacks the systemic tools required to understand systems as a whole. The scientific method is a systematic, step by step process that examines components of reality: reality which is made of interconnected systems. Both systemic and systematic approaches are required to understand reality [1]. The lack of a systemic method results in a "soft" science that is complex, ambiguous, and inconsistent. The fields within it are in the wild west, looking for a direction. Humans have a habit of looking at something unfamiliar and thinking to themselves," I don't understand it, therefore, it is dumb." Ambiguity can be difficult to handle. Many people take comfort in achieving an objective truth. [1]"Systems Engineering: A systemic and systematic methodology for solving complex problems." Joseph Kasser, 2019. p. 17

StrictDabbler 3y ago
I respect the soft sciences. They ask questions to which we need answers. They may sometimes fall short or lack rigor but it's not like we have an alternative way to address those issues. At the same time I am disturbed by a soft scientist recommending basement chemistry as a remedy for publication bias. YouTube has already inspired a generation of basement chemists making bromine tubes or dipping things in hydrofluoric acid. It is difficult and expensive to safely set up a residential space for chemical experimentation. It is also almost impossible to know everything required without already having become both an academic and having been involved in the construction of a university lab, at which point you no longer need to set up in your basement. Where does your drain go? Where will you store chemicals you can't dump in the drain? What's the drain pipe made of? Will your air conditioning overwhelm your ventilation hood? Could your return duct spill fumes into the main living space? Is all your electrical and ventilation equipment explosion proof? Deionized water, PPE, emergency shower, cleaning protocols... the list just goes on and the requirements are written in blood. Even in a fully equipped space with a trained staff chemistry is inherently risky. It really shouldn't be performed in a building where people have beds. Botany, entomology, astronomy, geology, sure. All these fields just need more eyes on them. Perhaps biochemistry if you are rigorous about never using volatile reagents, sure. But we don't have much real use for basement chemists screwing around with basement chemistry.

somenameforme 3y ago

At least in theory, I don't really think this distinction makes much sense. As but the most obvious example, a number of Einstein's most fundamental papers (including special relativity, and mass-energy equivalence) were published as an "amateur", while he was working as a low level patent inspector. And this is from a time when knowledge was quite difficult to access, meaning there really was quite a meaningful distinction between "amateur" and "professional." Now a days that distinction is largely gone. One can access effectively infinite information online, including access to educational resources from the most well regarded institutions that exist. One benefit of "amateur" science is that one can endlessly chase exceptionally improbable ideas. Publish or perish, bias against negative results, grants gained as a performance metric, and other factors mean the science that the overwhelming majority of academic researchers, let alone corporate, can pursue is quite limited.