2 ms·

Two game-theoretic strategies need to be mitigated/bred out out of Academia: (1)'Security through obscurity' problem, where nobody can be bothered to verify yo

by 001sky 13y ago

Two game-theoretic strategies need to be mitigated/bred out out of Academia: (1)'Security through obscurity' problem, where nobody can be bothered to verify your results as they are likely meaningless, lack broad applicability, or are not intellectally cost-effective for anyone to be bothered to understand them (etc). (2) The "lick the cookie" problem, where nobody will verify your results because there its considered degrading (professionally) to 'not be first' at the table, as the author of origin. [a] These both in combination lead to something of a "tradgedy of the commons" where the basic core of the discipline erodes in presitige/utility, as the individual contributors seek to maximize their personal productivity from the public good (the repuation of groundbreaking science). [a] This is the childhood strategy of making anything you touch first unatractive to all those who follow. edits: for clarity.

xherberta 13y ago
Interesting, and nicely stated! I wonder what it would look like if funding and publishing could be made to incentivize really valuable pursuits, rather than rewarding trendiness, novelty, and shock value.
snowwrestler 13y ago
Neither of these are actually problems. If (1), your results are obscure or lack applicability, then they are not useful anyway and so it doesn't matter if they are ever confirmed. A surprisingly large amount of scientific research fits into this category. While (2) few researchers set out solely to verify another's result, if the result is noteworthy, it will be incorporated as a component of future research and therefore tested indirectly. This other comment (not mine) explains how: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6662124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6662124
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
>(1)'Security through obscurity' problem, where nobody can be bothered to verify your results as they are likely meaningless, lack broad applicability, or are not intellectally cost-effective for anyone to be bothered to understand them (etc). This is simply a problem of explaining findings to other researchers. Every single researcher with a genuine finding on his hands will, at some point, seem like his work is obscure and pointless compared to "all those other guys" who are building on established research for immediate application. And then there's the issue that your failure to understand someone's research doesn't mean it isn't research. Sometimes what a field needs is just a few more smart people willing to work at understanding what the hell's going on.

by 001sky 13y ago

xherberta 13y ago

Interesting, and nicely stated! I wonder what it would look like if funding and publishing could be made to incentivize really valuable pursuits, rather than rewarding trendiness, novelty, and shock value.

snowwrestler 13y ago

Neither of these are actually problems. If (1), your results are obscure or lack applicability, then they are not useful anyway and so it doesn't matter if they are ever confirmed. A surprisingly large amount of scientific research fits into this category. While (2) few researchers set out solely to verify another's result, if the result is noteworthy, it will be incorporated as a component of future research and therefore tested indirectly. This other comment (not mine) explains how: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6662124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6662124

eli_gottlieb 13y ago

>(1)'Security through obscurity' problem, where nobody can be bothered to verify your results as they are likely meaningless, lack broad applicability, or are not intellectally cost-effective for anyone to be bothered to understand them (etc). This is simply a problem of explaining findings to other researchers. Every single researcher with a genuine finding on his hands will, at some point, seem like his work is obscure and pointless compared to "all those other guys" who are building on established research for immediate application. And then there's the issue that your failure to understand someone's research doesn't mean it isn't research. Sometimes what a field needs is just a few more smart people willing to work at understanding what the hell's going on.