3 ms·

I am instantly skeptical of hypotheses that sound nice and egalitarian. Nature is usually 80/20. In other words, 80% of researchers probably might as well not

I am instantly skeptical of hypotheses that sound nice and egalitarian. Nature is usually 80/20. In other words, 80% of researchers probably might as well not exist.

pryelluw 1y ago
But without the 80%, how would the 20% exist?
- hobs 1y ago
  And more specifically, if you knew which science to fund ahead of time we'd never have anything but 100% successes, science is often random and huge parts of it are not obviously useful ahead of time, some of which later becomes enormously useful.
- unsupp0rted 1y ago
  Conversely, without the 80% the 20% might be unencumbered. Imagine 2 Earths : one with 10 million researchers and the other with 2 million, but the latter is so cut-throat that the 2 million are Science Spartans.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartan_hegemony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartan_hegemony > Due to their mistrust of others, Spartans discouraged the creation of records about their internal affairs. The only histories of Sparta are from the writings of Xenophon, Thucydides, Herodotus and Plutarch, none of whom were Spartans. A good example, but perhaps not the point you wanted to make.
    - unsupp0rted 1y ago
      Either way the word "spartan" now connotes an aversion to cruft
umutisik 1y ago
You still need the other 80% of the folks to get the remaining 20% of the work done :)
ihm 1y ago
> Nature is usually 80/20. In other words, 80% of researchers probably might as well not exist. What does this even mean? Do you think in an ant colony only the queen is needed? Or in a wolf pack only the strongest wolf?
thmsths 1y ago
It's not that everyone contributes equally. It's that everyone's contribution matters. And while small contributions are less impressive, they are also more numerous, much more numerous which means that it's not out of the question that in aggregate they matter more; which means they should not be discounted. As Napoleon allegedly said "quantity has a quality of its own".
- jvanderbot 1y ago
  Moreover, the researchers are the contributing 20% (or more like 2%). It's probably fractal, but if you zoom out even a little, there's a long tail of not-much in any group.
laidoffamazon 1y ago
“Might as well not exist” - what should be done of the bottom 80% of society then? I’m sure this applies to SWEs too.
captainbland 1y ago
The Pareto principle gets "interesting" when you involve hierarchical categories. For instance, the category of "researchers" is arguably arbitrary. Why not research labs? Why not research universities? If we write off 80% of universities, 80% of labs in that top 20% of universities and 80% of researchers within that top 20% of labs then actually the number of impactful researchers would in fact be .2 * .2 *.2 or 0.8% of researchers which seems extreme. That said if we took 20% of all working people are doing useful work, then can you guarantee not all research scientists are within that category? And indeed there are different fields and the distributions of effectiveness may be incomparable. I think the nature of scientific and mathematical research is interesting in that often "useless" findings can find surprising applications. Boolean algebra is an interesting example of this in that until computing came about, it seemed purely theoretical in nature and impactless almost by definition. Yet the implications of that work underpinned the design of computer processors and the information age as such. This creates a quandary: we can say perhaps only 20% of work is relevant, but we don't necessarily know which 20% in advance.
- thmsths 1y ago
  Your last point reminds me of that joke about Hollywood: a bunch of Japanese executives are touring a studio they just purchased. The manager is trying to describe the business model to them: "You have to understand we make 10 movies a year but only 1 of them will make money." When they hear that the executives get agitated and huddle together. Eventually one of them turns toward the manager and says "Please only make that 1 profitable movie".
oytis 1y ago
Also the evidence for Newton hypothesis seems so much stronger. Like, how do you even measure the invisible influence of mediocre scientists?
ozim 1y ago
I don't see it as egalitarian — you need 80% people doing ground work so that you can send couple guys to the moon. Without those 80% digging the trenches you have nothing.

I am instantly skeptical of hypotheses that sound nice and egalitarian. Nature is usually 80/20. In other words, 80% of researchers probably might as well not exist.

pryelluw 1y ago

But without the 80%, how would the 20% exist?

hobs 1y ago
And more specifically, if you knew which science to fund ahead of time we'd never have anything but 100% successes, science is often random and huge parts of it are not obviously useful ahead of time, some of which later becomes enormously useful.
unsupp0rted 1y ago
Conversely, without the 80% the 20% might be unencumbered. Imagine 2 Earths : one with 10 million researchers and the other with 2 million, but the latter is so cut-throat that the 2 million are Science Spartans.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartan_hegemony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartan_hegemony > Due to their mistrust of others, Spartans discouraged the creation of records about their internal affairs. The only histories of Sparta are from the writings of Xenophon, Thucydides, Herodotus and Plutarch, none of whom were Spartans. A good example, but perhaps not the point you wanted to make.
  - unsupp0rted 1y ago
    Either way the word "spartan" now connotes an aversion to cruft

umutisik 1y ago

You still need the other 80% of the folks to get the remaining 20% of the work done :)

ihm 1y ago

> Nature is usually 80/20. In other words, 80% of researchers probably might as well not exist. What does this even mean? Do you think in an ant colony only the queen is needed? Or in a wolf pack only the strongest wolf?

thmsths 1y ago

It's not that everyone contributes equally. It's that everyone's contribution matters. And while small contributions are less impressive, they are also more numerous, much more numerous which means that it's not out of the question that in aggregate they matter more; which means they should not be discounted. As Napoleon allegedly said "quantity has a quality of its own".

jvanderbot 1y ago
Moreover, the researchers are the contributing 20% (or more like 2%). It's probably fractal, but if you zoom out even a little, there's a long tail of not-much in any group.

laidoffamazon 1y ago

“Might as well not exist” - what should be done of the bottom 80% of society then? I’m sure this applies to SWEs too.

captainbland 1y ago

The Pareto principle gets "interesting" when you involve hierarchical categories. For instance, the category of "researchers" is arguably arbitrary. Why not research labs? Why not research universities? If we write off 80% of universities, 80% of labs in that top 20% of universities and 80% of researchers within that top 20% of labs then actually the number of impactful researchers would in fact be .2 * .2 *.2 or 0.8% of researchers which seems extreme. That said if we took 20% of all working people are doing useful work, then can you guarantee not all research scientists are within that category? And indeed there are different fields and the distributions of effectiveness may be incomparable. I think the nature of scientific and mathematical research is interesting in that often "useless" findings can find surprising applications. Boolean algebra is an interesting example of this in that until computing came about, it seemed purely theoretical in nature and impactless almost by definition. Yet the implications of that work underpinned the design of computer processors and the information age as such. This creates a quandary: we can say perhaps only 20% of work is relevant, but we don't necessarily know which 20% in advance.

thmsths 1y ago
Your last point reminds me of that joke about Hollywood: a bunch of Japanese executives are touring a studio they just purchased. The manager is trying to describe the business model to them: "You have to understand we make 10 movies a year but only 1 of them will make money." When they hear that the executives get agitated and huddle together. Eventually one of them turns toward the manager and says "Please only make that 1 profitable movie".

oytis 1y ago

Also the evidence for Newton hypothesis seems so much stronger. Like, how do you even measure the invisible influence of mediocre scientists?

ozim 1y ago

I don't see it as egalitarian — you need 80% people doing ground work so that you can send couple guys to the moon. Without those 80% digging the trenches you have nothing.