6 ms·

You can be a genius in one field and a crank in another. For example: Penrose.

by Marazan 1y ago

nrml_amnt 1y ago
I think of Linus Pauling
oh_my_goodness 1y ago
This feels a bit like a circular argument.
- somewhereouther 1y ago
  [dead]
- r2_pilot 1y ago
  How about Linus Pauling and vitamin C then?
  - sarchertech 1y ago
    It happens. It’s surely possible. But does it happen enough that anytime a Nobel laureate says something a little out there, this is the immediate explanation? Especially if what he’s saying has lacks a major hallmark of crackpot theories. That is he is very open to his theory being wrong and he won’t even say that it’s probably correct. He just thinks it’s possible and would like to see more work done on it.
    - Retric 1y ago
      Yes in that when they something outside their field that’s ‘a little out there’ Nobel laureate’s aren’t as a group more useful than random noise. Similarly a crank can happen to say a true statement, but the issue is the process with which the statement is derived is flawed to the point of uselessness. The derogatory aspect of calling someone a crank is obviously uncalled for, but as a shorthand it’s not unreasonable to use the term.
      - sarchertech 1y ago
        If a Nobel laureate says they have an interesting hypothesis that they’d like test and that idea isn’t obviously impossible, it’s probably best not to dismiss it as crank science. Walter Alvarez is another Nobel laureate who proposed a theory that an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. Many people thought that was crank science. And it’s important to note he had another out there idea that there were hidden chambers in the pyramids of Egypt. That one turned out to be wrong. What distinguished his theories from crank science is that he was open to the idea that they were wrong and was interested in actually using the scientific method to investigate them.
        Apocryphon 1y ago
        Maybe it is, Nobel prize winners might be so hyper-specialized in their field that they have superficial at best understandings of others. Engineer’s Disease writ large.
        sarchertech 1y ago
        He’s been writing on consciousness for 40 years now and he’s been studying the topic since undergrad. Also most of what he talks about is soundly within his field. The only thing that’s really not is the microtuble thing and he collaborated with someone else on that. That’s also the least interesting thing he says I think because he admits it’s just an interesting place to look for quantum effects and he has no idea if he’s right.
        jibal 1y ago
        Nothing that Penrose has talked about in re consciousness is "soundly within his field" other than "the microtubule thing" and his collaborator, anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, is a crank among cranks. Also, Penrose has not been "studying the topic since undergrad" ... he's been bothered by the notion that he is "just a computer" since then, but he didn't get into seriously addressing it until much later, and he's never studied it--he notoriously ignores the entirety of the literature of philosophy of mind and neuroscience. > That’s also the least interesting thing he says I think because he admits it’s just an interesting place to look for quantum effects and he has no idea if he’s right. This is simply not accurate. And the fact is that Penrose is completely irrelevant to the subject of consciousness other than via an argument from invalid authority. P.S. The response is disingenuous and discrediting ... I won't respond to that person again, especially after seeing this comment: "I’m in the Penrose camp that Turing machines can’t be conscious which is required for true AGI" --- this is pure ideology. TMs are clearly adequate for AGI even if somehow "TMs can't be conscious" ... c.f. Chalmers' philosophical zombies.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - oh_my_goodness 1y ago
    Yeah, that's fair.
- jibal 1y ago
  Maybe review what a circular argument is, because that isn't one.
  - oh_my_goodness 1y ago
    Sure! Happy to. Here's an example of a circular argument: "Penrose could be a crank. We know that kind of thing is possible because, for instance, Penrose is a crank."
    - jibal 1y ago
      The argument made was nothing like that. The assertion made was "You can be a genius in one field and a crank in another." Supporting evidence was offered: "For example: Penrose." One can dispute the evidence, but there's nothing circular about the argument--your version is a strawman created precisely in an attempt to turn a non-circular argument into a circular one. And even rejecting that evidence there's plenty of other evidence and others here gave examples. Not that examples are even needed, as the assertion is self-evident, and was offered as a counter to a textbook fallacious argument from authority: "he's easily done enough important science work to not be called a crank". There is no basis at all for such a claim. Perhaps Penrose is not a crank in re consciousness, but it certainly doesn't follow from the fact that he's done the highest caliber non-crank science ... that claim is fallacious, disingenuous, and intellectually dishonest.
      - oh_my_goodness 1y ago
        If any one cares about this, please hit "parent" a few times to see what everybody said.
      - jibal 1y ago
        > If any one cares about this, please hit "parent" a few times to see what everybody said. They will see that I accurately quoted what was said and my correspondent did not, twisting it into a circular argument when it wasn't.
NegativeLatency 1y ago
example: Shockley was a eugenicist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley And plenty more: https://archive.is/2021.06.21-140221/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/151005-nobel-laureates-forget-racist-sexist-science https://archive.is/2021.06.21-140221/https://www.nationalgeo...
joquarky 1y ago
The fact that you couldn't pick a different person as an example makes for a very weak assertion.
- jibal 1y ago
  There's no evidence that they couldn't pick a different person. There are quite a few other persons and some other commenters pointed out some of them.
- dboreham 1y ago
  Newton.
  - BurningFrog 1y ago
    Newton pretty much invented several fields of science, like Classical Mechanics, Optics, Calculus, and Gravitational Astronomy. He started out as a novice in all of them. That Alchemy failed to pan out as a science doesn't make him a crank in my book. You can't know Alchemy is impossible until you try pretty hard.
rf15 1y ago
or even within the same field! Further examples: Newton, Chomsky

You can be a genius in one field and a crank in another. For example: Penrose.

nrml_amnt 1y ago

I think of Linus Pauling

oh_my_goodness 1y ago

This feels a bit like a circular argument.

somewhereouther 1y ago
[dead]
r2_pilot 1y ago
How about Linus Pauling and vitamin C then?
- sarchertech 1y ago
  It happens. It’s surely possible. But does it happen enough that anytime a Nobel laureate says something a little out there, this is the immediate explanation? Especially if what he’s saying has lacks a major hallmark of crackpot theories. That is he is very open to his theory being wrong and he won’t even say that it’s probably correct. He just thinks it’s possible and would like to see more work done on it.
  - Retric 1y ago
    Yes in that when they something outside their field that’s ‘a little out there’ Nobel laureate’s aren’t as a group more useful than random noise. Similarly a crank can happen to say a true statement, but the issue is the process with which the statement is derived is flawed to the point of uselessness. The derogatory aspect of calling someone a crank is obviously uncalled for, but as a shorthand it’s not unreasonable to use the term.
    - sarchertech 1y ago
      If a Nobel laureate says they have an interesting hypothesis that they’d like test and that idea isn’t obviously impossible, it’s probably best not to dismiss it as crank science. Walter Alvarez is another Nobel laureate who proposed a theory that an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. Many people thought that was crank science. And it’s important to note he had another out there idea that there were hidden chambers in the pyramids of Egypt. That one turned out to be wrong. What distinguished his theories from crank science is that he was open to the idea that they were wrong and was interested in actually using the scientific method to investigate them.
      - Apocryphon 1y ago
        Maybe it is, Nobel prize winners might be so hyper-specialized in their field that they have superficial at best understandings of others. Engineer’s Disease writ large.
        sarchertech 1y ago
        He’s been writing on consciousness for 40 years now and he’s been studying the topic since undergrad. Also most of what he talks about is soundly within his field. The only thing that’s really not is the microtuble thing and he collaborated with someone else on that. That’s also the least interesting thing he says I think because he admits it’s just an interesting place to look for quantum effects and he has no idea if he’s right.
        jibal 1y ago
        Nothing that Penrose has talked about in re consciousness is "soundly within his field" other than "the microtubule thing" and his collaborator, anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, is a crank among cranks. Also, Penrose has not been "studying the topic since undergrad" ... he's been bothered by the notion that he is "just a computer" since then, but he didn't get into seriously addressing it until much later, and he's never studied it--he notoriously ignores the entirety of the literature of philosophy of mind and neuroscience. > That’s also the least interesting thing he says I think because he admits it’s just an interesting place to look for quantum effects and he has no idea if he’s right. This is simply not accurate. And the fact is that Penrose is completely irrelevant to the subject of consciousness other than via an argument from invalid authority. P.S. The response is disingenuous and discrediting ... I won't respond to that person again, especially after seeing this comment: "I’m in the Penrose camp that Turing machines can’t be conscious which is required for true AGI" --- this is pure ideology. TMs are clearly adequate for AGI even if somehow "TMs can't be conscious" ... c.f. Chalmers' philosophical zombies.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- oh_my_goodness 1y ago
  Yeah, that's fair.
jibal 1y ago
Maybe review what a circular argument is, because that isn't one.
- oh_my_goodness 1y ago
  Sure! Happy to. Here's an example of a circular argument: "Penrose could be a crank. We know that kind of thing is possible because, for instance, Penrose is a crank."
  - jibal 1y ago
    The argument made was nothing like that. The assertion made was "You can be a genius in one field and a crank in another." Supporting evidence was offered: "For example: Penrose." One can dispute the evidence, but there's nothing circular about the argument--your version is a strawman created precisely in an attempt to turn a non-circular argument into a circular one. And even rejecting that evidence there's plenty of other evidence and others here gave examples. Not that examples are even needed, as the assertion is self-evident, and was offered as a counter to a textbook fallacious argument from authority: "he's easily done enough important science work to not be called a crank". There is no basis at all for such a claim. Perhaps Penrose is not a crank in re consciousness, but it certainly doesn't follow from the fact that he's done the highest caliber non-crank science ... that claim is fallacious, disingenuous, and intellectually dishonest.
    - oh_my_goodness 1y ago
      If any one cares about this, please hit "parent" a few times to see what everybody said.
    - jibal 1y ago
      > If any one cares about this, please hit "parent" a few times to see what everybody said. They will see that I accurately quoted what was said and my correspondent did not, twisting it into a circular argument when it wasn't.

NegativeLatency 1y ago

example: Shockley was a eugenicist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley And plenty more: https://archive.is/2021.06.21-140221/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/151005-nobel-laureates-forget-racist-sexist-science https://archive.is/2021.06.21-140221/https://www.nationalgeo...

joquarky 1y ago

The fact that you couldn't pick a different person as an example makes for a very weak assertion.

jibal 1y ago
There's no evidence that they couldn't pick a different person. There are quite a few other persons and some other commenters pointed out some of them.
dboreham 1y ago
Newton.
- BurningFrog 1y ago
  Newton pretty much invented several fields of science, like Classical Mechanics, Optics, Calculus, and Gravitational Astronomy. He started out as a novice in all of them. That Alchemy failed to pan out as a science doesn't make him a crank in my book. You can't know Alchemy is impossible until you try pretty hard.

rf15 1y ago

or even within the same field! Further examples: Newton, Chomsky