6 ms·

It's interesting how 'we' as a society build up archetypes about the different sciences(and, well, everything really) and instead of fostering and promoting inn

by ZoF 12y ago

It's interesting how 'we' as a society build up archetypes about the different sciences(and, well, everything really) and instead of fostering and promoting innovation in those areas we oftentimes question/demean/discredit people who bring forth new ideas pertaining to those preconceived notions.(referring loosely to the scientist's skeptical coworkers) From my limited anecdotal experience(therefore potentially/likely flawed) I would say that it's namely a result of aversion to change, desire to assimilate(fit in), and fear of failure. It's a shame really; I honestly believe that a LOT of value could be gained from looking at life sciences from a completely blank/unaltered perspective. If they were void of preconceived notions as to how these underlying biological systems function I think that intelligent people would at very least yield novel concepts in terms of comprehending inputs and representing results. To restate in different vernacular, How it is now: If you want to do research pertaining to something that interests you personally you've got at _least_ 4 years of college before heading into the industry.(This precludes university research labs (as if you'd have project control anyway)). Not only that, but for most active-minded humans, the 17 years before college are boring as fuck(not to say that an active social life and interesting/engaging childhood makes you, in any way, less-active-minded). We literally teach children to fore-go logic and reasoning and mindlessly obey authority. We train children to read/write/copy/repeat, but we NEVER teach them to discover something novel on their own. Which is not to say, of course, that every idea is valid(or even worthy of exploration). I mean, the system does 'work'(in that by forcing you to work up the ladder before innovating it weeds out the thoughtless/crazy/impractical ideas and ensures that anyone hoping to do research has a vested interest in the subject matter), but I think that if we, as a society, encouraged/accepted failure and were less hostile towards change we could stand to gain a lot. Eh. This is a bit of a ramble, I guess TL,DR: I find that the aversion to failure/change which is so inherent in society today stifles innovation. What do you guys/gals think? Am I off base here? Would love to hear someone else's opinion on the matter, I can't enumerate the number of times that I've fully fleshed out an opinion only to have reality altering conjecture come into play.

jonsen 12y ago
Innovation is not stifled. Look around, we have plenty. But we can't have too much. Evolution should happen with reasonably stability. Evolution takes place on the border between order and chaos. Innovation is promoting force. We need retarding forces too.
- ZoF 12y ago
  I think I disagree. I see no definitive/logical reason for establishing an upper-bound on innovation. The past several centuries are a testament to the fact that biological evolution and human innovation have a symbiotic relationship^1. That's not to say that there aren't drawbacks to innovation, particularly to the implementations of said innovation, but rather that I personally believe those detrimental aspects would be best mitigated by altering implementations of current infrastructure/technology, not by stifling innovation.
- jamesrcole 12y ago
  Are you trying to suggest that we, at present, have the right amount, or close to the right amount? If so, on what grounds?
  - jonsen 12y ago
    I'm just trying to say that one should not neglect the importance of damping factors in dynamic systems. Our human environment is a complex dynamic system. No one can tell what would be the right amount of evolutionary progress without risking runaway phenomena. An example of which could be all the innovation taking place in Germany before WW II.
arethuza 12y ago
The fact that scientists can be overly conservative has been known for a long time - Thomas Kuhn's "paradigm shifts" describe this phenomena. Now, of course, you could argue that the naturally conservative nature of academic research is a good thing as it arguably filters out clearly daft idea early on - but a lot of spectacularly good scientific theories looked completely daft to the mainstream at the time they were first suggested (continental drift being a great example). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift#Kuhnian_paradigm_shifts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift#Kuhnian_paradigm...
- masklinn 12y ago
  > a lot of spectacularly good scientific theories looked completely daft to the mainstream at the time they were first suggested (continental drift being a great example). Academic "conservatism" hasn't prevented them from taking over the field as collected evidence made their correctness (compared to the old model) overwhelming, so that does not seem to be much of an argument against the existing system.
  - arethuza 12y ago
    Of course, change does happen but slowly in a lot of cases - as Max Planck famously said: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
    - kiba 12y ago
      A quotation by a great scientist is not evidence or proof of your hypothesis.
- ZoF 12y ago
  Ha, nice; sometimes it seems as if any concept I internally stumble upon(albeit only tangentially related in this case) has already been thoroughly fleshed out and eloquently described by a more intelligent mind than my own. You are glorious Wikipedia. Thanks for the link/info.
danielbarla 12y ago
Interesting points. I think you're being slightly too bitter / cynical regarding the "how it is now" section. Certainly, my own upbringing included logic, reasoning, and questioning things, although I suspect many parents feel that this kind of thing might undermine their authority. My siblings and I were even provided with (at the time) prohibitively expensive Commodore 64s to foster our own "research" and exploration, leading us to discover (or rather, stumble upon) basic programming before our teens. And yes, a single counter-example might not mean much, but I've seen many others with similar, fortunate upbringings. I suspect a similar thing applies to your "system" comments. First, I'd add "re-inventing things" to the list of stuff we'd like to avoid. This is a big one; in my experience most people don't seem to have an idea about how deeply things have been researched in various directions already. As a simple example, I recently had a colleague re-invent the concept of a consumer price index, and pitch it as something brand new. As time goes on, this will just get worse and worse. In this sense, I'd add the ability to review the state of research in a particular area, the ability to perform and document research in a way that's repeatable, and these types of things to the wish-list. It just seems to me that most people pushing for more innovation in research don't seem to value these things very much. EDIT: So really, the question for me would be whether the current approach of upbringing as well as strict research career paths do more harm (by stifling innovation) than good (by preventing people from doing bad science). Who knows.
eli_gottlieb 12y ago
You're completely correct, but without concrete suggestions to address the problem, your remark is also completely cliched. We all figured this out at some point, we all know everyone else knows, and we just don't see a way out of this shitty Nash Equilibrium at the moment and we all have real, working lives to get on with.
Retric 12y ago
As a counter example, I like many people did some 'original' research for my HS science fair. I ended up working with a geologist at my local school who was both willing to give advice and a little help for free. I saw plenty of examples where someone got access to either testing equipment or raw data. EX: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/search/ http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/search/ As long as you have the methodology down you can even get published. IMO, the real issue is the vast majority of people both inside and outside the establishment don't have any ideas that are both original and anywhere close to correct. PS: It tourneys out my idea was less novel than I thought but the journey was still fun.

by ZoF 12y ago

jonsen 12y ago

Innovation is not stifled. Look around, we have plenty. But we can't have too much. Evolution should happen with reasonably stability. Evolution takes place on the border between order and chaos. Innovation is promoting force. We need retarding forces too.

ZoF 12y ago
I think I disagree. I see no definitive/logical reason for establishing an upper-bound on innovation. The past several centuries are a testament to the fact that biological evolution and human innovation have a symbiotic relationship^1. That's not to say that there aren't drawbacks to innovation, particularly to the implementations of said innovation, but rather that I personally believe those detrimental aspects would be best mitigated by altering implementations of current infrastructure/technology, not by stifling innovation.
jamesrcole 12y ago
Are you trying to suggest that we, at present, have the right amount, or close to the right amount? If so, on what grounds?
- jonsen 12y ago
  I'm just trying to say that one should not neglect the importance of damping factors in dynamic systems. Our human environment is a complex dynamic system. No one can tell what would be the right amount of evolutionary progress without risking runaway phenomena. An example of which could be all the innovation taking place in Germany before WW II.

arethuza 12y ago

The fact that scientists can be overly conservative has been known for a long time - Thomas Kuhn's "paradigm shifts" describe this phenomena. Now, of course, you could argue that the naturally conservative nature of academic research is a good thing as it arguably filters out clearly daft idea early on - but a lot of spectacularly good scientific theories looked completely daft to the mainstream at the time they were first suggested (continental drift being a great example). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift#Kuhnian_paradigm_shifts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift#Kuhnian_paradigm...

masklinn 12y ago
> a lot of spectacularly good scientific theories looked completely daft to the mainstream at the time they were first suggested (continental drift being a great example). Academic "conservatism" hasn't prevented them from taking over the field as collected evidence made their correctness (compared to the old model) overwhelming, so that does not seem to be much of an argument against the existing system.
- arethuza 12y ago
  Of course, change does happen but slowly in a lot of cases - as Max Planck famously said: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
  - kiba 12y ago
    A quotation by a great scientist is not evidence or proof of your hypothesis.
ZoF 12y ago
Ha, nice; sometimes it seems as if any concept I internally stumble upon(albeit only tangentially related in this case) has already been thoroughly fleshed out and eloquently described by a more intelligent mind than my own. You are glorious Wikipedia. Thanks for the link/info.

danielbarla 12y ago

Interesting points. I think you're being slightly too bitter / cynical regarding the "how it is now" section. Certainly, my own upbringing included logic, reasoning, and questioning things, although I suspect many parents feel that this kind of thing might undermine their authority. My siblings and I were even provided with (at the time) prohibitively expensive Commodore 64s to foster our own "research" and exploration, leading us to discover (or rather, stumble upon) basic programming before our teens. And yes, a single counter-example might not mean much, but I've seen many others with similar, fortunate upbringings. I suspect a similar thing applies to your "system" comments. First, I'd add "re-inventing things" to the list of stuff we'd like to avoid. This is a big one; in my experience most people don't seem to have an idea about how deeply things have been researched in various directions already. As a simple example, I recently had a colleague re-invent the concept of a consumer price index, and pitch it as something brand new. As time goes on, this will just get worse and worse. In this sense, I'd add the ability to review the state of research in a particular area, the ability to perform and document research in a way that's repeatable, and these types of things to the wish-list. It just seems to me that most people pushing for more innovation in research don't seem to value these things very much. EDIT: So really, the question for me would be whether the current approach of upbringing as well as strict research career paths do more harm (by stifling innovation) than good (by preventing people from doing bad science). Who knows.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

You're completely correct, but without concrete suggestions to address the problem, your remark is also completely cliched. We all figured this out at some point, we all know everyone else knows, and we just don't see a way out of this shitty Nash Equilibrium at the moment and we all have real, working lives to get on with.

Retric 12y ago

As a counter example, I like many people did some 'original' research for my HS science fair. I ended up working with a geologist at my local school who was both willing to give advice and a little help for free. I saw plenty of examples where someone got access to either testing equipment or raw data. EX: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/search/ http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/search/ As long as you have the methodology down you can even get published. IMO, the real issue is the vast majority of people both inside and outside the establishment don't have any ideas that are both original and anywhere close to correct. PS: It tourneys out my idea was less novel than I thought but the journey was still fun.