4 ms·

> You have to start from the assumption that it’s Out To Get You, because nine times out of ten, it is. Maybe it’s activist bullshit based around tendentiously

> You have to start from the assumption that it’s Out To Get You, because nine times out of ten, it is. Maybe it’s activist bullshit based around tendentiously redefining words, or maybe it’s built on fabricated medical data, or maybe it’s some kind of statistical jiggery-pokery to pull statistical significance out of unreplicable noise Or maybe its a rant with made up claims that the past was just better™. Were academic papers in past really better on average, or are you only reading the best ones that survived the past half century. Is the average PhD really worse today, or are you comparing them to the top minds of the past century. > A hundred years ago, all the important physicists knew each other and were in constant dialogue This seems like a particularly egregious claim. It is easier than ever to communicate with almost anyone in the world in close to real time. Is there really a solid argument to be made that the top physicists collaborated more easily 100 years ago? Were there any other major world events happening around 1924 that may have influenced a rapid advance in physics and technology? something kind of the opposite of collaboration?

bsder 3y ago
> Were academic papers in past really better on average, or are you only reading the best ones that survived the past half century. There was both a barrier for entry issue (your paper had to be typed, illustrated, etc.) as well as an "iterated game" issue where the field was small enough that if you got a reputation for junk you would get ignored. Both of these have collapsed, so I would definitely argue that the papers of the past were better on average.
- MeetingsBrowser 3y ago
  > There was both a barrier for entry issue (your paper had to be typed, illustrated, etc.) I don't really understand this. The barrier to publishing academic work was (and is?) the ability to create a document? I would argue the barrier was and is, having sufficient background knowledge to produce academic work accepted by your peers. > the field was small enough that if you got a reputation for junk you would get ignored. Still largely the case today. It is true that anyone can publish to personal blogs or substack and that the average quality of that largely opinionated content is low. But academic papers (that matter) are published in very specific venues. Experts in a domain know which venue to look at and publish to. The bar to get work published in those specific venues remains much higher than substack. Is the bar lower than in the past? Maybe. Without someone actually looking into it we are just throwing around opinions and gut feelings.

bsder 3y ago

> Were academic papers in past really better on average, or are you only reading the best ones that survived the past half century. There was both a barrier for entry issue (your paper had to be typed, illustrated, etc.) as well as an "iterated game" issue where the field was small enough that if you got a reputation for junk you would get ignored. Both of these have collapsed, so I would definitely argue that the papers of the past were better on average.

MeetingsBrowser 3y ago
> There was both a barrier for entry issue (your paper had to be typed, illustrated, etc.) I don't really understand this. The barrier to publishing academic work was (and is?) the ability to create a document? I would argue the barrier was and is, having sufficient background knowledge to produce academic work accepted by your peers. > the field was small enough that if you got a reputation for junk you would get ignored. Still largely the case today. It is true that anyone can publish to personal blogs or substack and that the average quality of that largely opinionated content is low. But academic papers (that matter) are published in very specific venues. Experts in a domain know which venue to look at and publish to. The bar to get work published in those specific venues remains much higher than substack. Is the bar lower than in the past? Maybe. Without someone actually looking into it we are just throwing around opinions and gut feelings.