[lrossi]

Personally, I think it’s best if scientists lean towards the conservative/skepticism side, to filter out scams or bad science. But there should be a balance between that and allowing new ideas to surface. Do you think it’s taken too far?

[ramraj07]

I think the opposite - hold the highest standards for the quality of the data and it's interpretation, but we need to allow the wildest of hypotheses to be tested without judgement. Conservatism at the hypothesis step is the biggest reason science today sucks if you ask me. I'll say the job of being conservative belongs to engineers, and is one of the main differentiators between science and engineering.

The most amazing discoveries even in the recent times often come from scientists testing some of the wildest hypothesis - a rotation student in Andrew Fire's lab thinking he's injecting RNA into the gonad of a worm when he was stupidly injecting them into its mouth, or when a young Yamanaka had no clue basically and did a random experiment in his new lab adding a bunch of genes to cells to see if they do something.

I've sat through sessions seeing scientists laughed at for their wild hypotheses, by what I can only call as old, over-congratulated high school valedictorians who are only actually good at playing politics and writing grants, with a self professed love of science and discovering things that's as genuine as a Republican saying he is all for facts.

Let the crazies risk their lives on the wildest hypotheses. Fund them as long as they are systematic and methodical in their efforts to prove them. That's how you make science take the leaps it needs to be truly transformative for civilization. That's how I intend to do science and I learned clearly that I don't belong in academia. I have no intention of even swinging the science bat if I'm not at least trying to shoot for the moon!

[cycomanic]

The large problem is the limited funding. If there is only funding for 10% of applications and a large portion of the success hinges on previous success and your experience on this topic, then you automatically breed conservatism.

[bsenftner]

This problem of limited funding is due to the unnatural influence of Capitalism and unnatural existence of too many billionaires absorbing the majority of what would be disposable income and tax revenues that would otherwise fund any nation's infrastructure, including federal science initiates. We're learning now the entire Texas power grid failure dates back to G.W. Bush's state government dismantling Texas power upon the council of Enron's financial advisers. The majority of our problems in society is due to overt greed and it's influence on key infrastructure - power, education, law, law enforcement, food safety... it goes on and on. This is the reason we have regulations, because without them the greedy would have us eating Plutonium Pops for breakfast, and washing it down with Petro-plastic Orange Drink.

[rramadass]

Exactly Right! I think this mindset is fundamental to advancing Science. One of the reasons i feel that "doing" Science has fallen out of favour with the public is because the "Researchers" are not being daring and brave enough to "dream up" far fetched hypotheses and in general not pushing the envelope. Most are just regular "salaried employees" with no great dreams/ambitions.

[sitkack]

/s I know, most of the people I know came for the money but stayed for the science.

Those "salaried employees" started life as curious people, yeah some of them might be looking at the world with a blurrier lens. But they were constructed, the system made those people. While they make the problem worse, they are symptom not a cause.

[sitkack]

The same exact process you painted has a direct analog in tech businesses right now.

I think the problem is the hierarchy.

A development organization is an amplifier that brings a new capability into existence. Currently, organizations have to get big to amplify what their qualities. But to get big to achieve its goals it needs to be hierarchical, and because the hierarchy and the practitioners are the same folks, the org structure becomes the product.

The goal of the organization is to maintain its structure. Innovation happens when you have less structure. How do we scale, and maximize the organizational power while enabling create autonomy?

[throwawayboise]

At the same time, labs and researchers and equipment cost real money. There are opportunity costs. There some good reasons to not spend money on wild conjectures.

[StavrosK]

Eh, you can allocate a percentage of resources on wild conjectures, since many of our biggest discoveries have been made that way. No need to shut them down and ridicule them.

[boomboomsubban]

So do you pick the wildest conjecture to test, or one of the somewhat more plausible ones? And how much money should go into one before you move on?

[StavrosK]

> So do you pick the wildest conjecture to test, or one of the somewhat more plausible ones?

20% of the former, 80% of the latter.

> And how much money should go into one before you move on?

3% of the available funds each year.

Hope this helps!

[boomboomsubban]

>3% of the available funds each year

So after years without results you'll continue propping up the one long shot you picked?

My larger point is that you're treating this like there are just a couple wild conjectures that need just a bit of money. There are vast amounts of alternative ideas, and often the necessary experiments will not be cheap. While ridiculing them isn't right, the idea that obviously we should fund them is ridiculous.

[f6v]

Yet the venture funds are absolutely fine with spending money on wildest moonshots that have one in a million chance of becoming the next Facebook

[ramraj07]

Sure let's spend it on what, MOD-ENCODE version two? That's super useful and curing cancer and tuberculosis left and right eh!

[hyperpallium2]

UBI can free scientists from grants, but democratization of hypotheses will become populistization.

Also, engineering leads science at time: this works but we don't know why.

[mjfl]

> UBI can free scientists from grants

No it would not. The money necessary to find a lab is orders of magnitude higher than any reasonable UBI.

[keldaris]

I'm a theoretical physicist. UBI would absolutely free me and most of my colleagues from grant writing (and IT freelancing, which frankly has better ROI at this point). I do basically all of my research on a mildly high end home computer and bits of paper.

[mjfl]

The theoretical physicists I know get their funding from teaching and don’t need grants.

[keldaris]

That varies by country and sometimes even by university. In some universities there are far fewer teaching positions than staff scientist jobs, particularly when you count research institutes, while in others a typical teaching load without additional funding hovers somewhere around the poverty line.

In my case it's both, so instead of teaching I take half-time IT consulting gigs here and there, which pay enough for me to be able to do science even if I had no funding at all. I still get some grants, mostly because you're looked at funny if you don't, but I'm done losing sleep over them, plus if I finally decide to give up academia I'll have an easy transition.

[hyperpallium2]

But they need teaching, a day job, right?

While teaching helps consolidate your own understanding, and is useful and satisfying, it's a matter of degree.

[hyperpallium2]

Some do, but not all scientists need expensive labs. Some equipment is getting cheaper too.

[shakow]

Bio lab equipment is getting cheaper as in $100K's instead of $1M's, not as in “can be bought with UBI”.

[f6v]

With the amount of computations you needs to do this days, no UBI is going to cover that.

[senderista]

How much effort do you think we should put into testing homeopathy?

[Kliment]

Given the extremely wide evidence basis from existing data (there's millions of worldwide users) I'd argue no more than has been, and that the current data is sufficient to show its lack of effectiveness without any additional effort. But had the obviously-silly hypothesis (adding a tiny bit of something bad can have a good effect) been rejected from the start in a different context we'd never have gotten vaccines (which originate from a similar hypothesis in a different context).

The problem with homeopathy is not that it's a crazy idea. It's that it's been extensively shown not to work and is still being pushed as a good idea.

[Shacklz]

> It's that it's been extensively shown not to work

This is going off-topic, but I really think it depends on your definition of "not to work".

If people essentially throw in low-cost placebos to cure themselves of headaches and other minor ailments, while believing that this is exactly what they need, I consider this a net-positive for society compared to giving them actual medication that costs more with potential side-effects/harms.

Obviously, the fun ends when quacks prescribe homeopathy for serious stuff that needs actual treatment (in Germany, there was a case a few years ago where such a quack tried to treat his wife's breast cancer - obviously, this is beyond what should be legal). But for minor things that aren't too big of an issue even if left untreated, letting people use homeopathy if they're into that - why not.

[hutzlibu]

But it is known, that placebos work.

It is also known, that placebos work better, if people believe; they are medicine.

Thats why Homeopathy "works"

"in Germany, there was a case a few years ago where such a quack tried to treat his wife's breast cancer - obviously, this is beyond what should be legal). "

But this, I see actually different. People of clear mind, should have any right to choose their treatment of choice. So informing them on the best options, yes! Telling them of the mechanism of fraudsters who prey on peoples hopes, yes! But in the end maybe not forbidding them if they choose - for whatever reason - less standard methods.

Maybe the placebo works in their case. Maybe the alternative treatment with the roots of plant X had by chance an actual unknown effective drug in it. Who knows. But I know that telling people to follow standards is not allways the best way.

Btw. because if a recent case I know there are homeophatic cancer clinics in germany. So it seems to be legal?

I know of other alternative cancer treatment by the very weird "Dr. Hamer" who cannot be practised in germany if the patient actually has cancer. And I think this is not helping to disprove scams. (because I know people who are into it)

[Viliam1234]

> People of clear mind, should have any right to choose their treatment of choice. So informing them on the best options, yes! Telling them of the mechanism of fraudsters who prey on peoples hopes, yes! But in the end maybe not forbidding them if they choose - for whatever reason - less standard methods.

In theory, I agree with you. People should be clearly told "there is evidence that X works, and there is no evidence that Y works, however you are free to try Y at your own risk". And then they would make their choice.

But I am afraid that it wouldn't work so well in practice. First, there is the problem of who is this authoritative voice that tells people "X works, Y does not". Is it government? (Will it not become subject of political fighting? Like, depending on who wins the election, evolution either exists or does not exist, masks either help or do not help against COVID, etc.) Or is it some professional organization of experts? Then the fraudsters will make their own alternative organizations, that for a layman will look exactly the same. -- At the end, the layman has no idea whom to trust.

Second, the fraudster talking to you can be more persuasive than a website you read, simply because they can adapt their argument to your knowledge. Even if the website says "X works, Y does not", the fraudster can explain like "by 'Y does not work' they actually refer to Y1, but what I am selling is Y2 which is not the same thing", and there will be no one there to say "actually, Y refers to both Y1 and Y2" or "Y2 is just Y1 under a new name". For a layman it is difficult to evaluate when two things are or are not the same.

So at the end, either fraud is legal, or illegal. "Legal, but you have been warned, so use your best judgment" does not work for people with average intelligence and average expertise.

[ramraj07]

None, for the most part. If data exists that already disproves your hypothesis then there's not much to work on here is there?

[refurb]

It sounds like you’re judging wild ideas. I though you didn’t want that?

[f6v]

It’s rather simple. The wild idea shouldn’t be judged until it had been refuted with data.

[inglor_cz]

It is not that simple. We already have a replication crisis; some data out there is wrong, possibly the one that refute some wild idea.

In the ideal world, everything would be replicated and retested at least a few times. Practically, we do not have the resources, and sometimes other interests come into play. For example, those of some industry to fund studies that refute some wild idea that threatens their business. How many studies on safety of sugar are paid by Coca Cola?

[refurb]

Homeopathy hasn’t been proven to not work in cancer. I mean, there is no double blinded randomized trial of say healing crystals. Should we still fund such a trial? I mean, there is no data to refute it.

[refurb]

If someone wanted to test the ability to shrink tumors through prayer that shouldn’t be judged?

[ramraj07]

If it can truly be tested, then it should be tested! But how do you truly test it? Even if God isn't real, acts like prayer give you emotional support and that can have a very real effect! So if you merely want to test whether an act like prayer is effective, then that's simple and probably already done and also probably shows some effect. However if you want to prove that prayer in a particular method to a particular God is effective, that's tricky. If someone can design an elegant enough study then it should be tested!

[f6v]

If they could build a mathematical model and simulations...Why not? Seems like a low-effort experiment.

[refurb]

You’d need to run a double blinded randomizes controlled trial with enough patients to test the effect.

And it would be wildly unethical to use prayer which by any reasonable understanding of cancer biology would not work.

[ramraj07]

Why does it have to replace therapy? One arm can be prayer + therapy and another can just be therapy

[refurb]

Ok, that would address the unethical part, but still, does that sound like a good use of limit research dollars?

This is one of those instances where judgement is a good thing. Don’t run such a silly trial. Spend the money on something that actually has a chance to work.

[dekhn]

Yes, it's taken too far. Multiple times in RNA biology people have made legitimate discoveries and were required to implement heroic methods to make their case. The first two I think of are Tom Cech whose grad student demonstrated that RNA can be an enzyme with extremely reliable evidence but they had to put in a few years of work to actually get the community to agree. Similarly, Harry Noller had very strong evidence the heart of the ribosome was an RNA machine and it took 40 years and a crystal structure before the community finally accepted it. A similar case happened with DNA with the Avery experiment which was as good a proof as you'll ever get in biology, but it wasn't until Hershey Chase that the general community overcame the skepticism that DNA could be the molecule of heredity.

[stocknoob]

Scientists should be skeptics of their own conservatism. Much "conservatism" is in the name of defending egos.

“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.” - Max Plank

It'd be nice to not wait a generation.

[lrossi]

Right, there are plenty of such examples from physics. I was wondering if biology is the same. But it actually sounds worse.

I think computer science is doing much better nowadays. The “NoSQL” movement for example was particularly impressive, it’s something that wouldn’t fly in most other sciences.

[Sharlin]

NoSQL is much more about software engineering than computer science, and software engineering is ridiculously susceptible to fads in a way no mature engineering discipline should be. And almost never are those fads actually new ideas, because trends work cyclically rather than linearly. Most SWEs are just too ignorant of the history of their own trade to realize that.

[sjg007]

Except that NoSQL has been around for decades. It just went by a different name in the 1960s.

[selimthegrim]

Pick IIRC

[dboreham]

ISAM

[glitcher]

I think computer science benefits from the relatively low cost and widespread availability of hardware and software tools. You don't necessarily need huge financial backing to explore a new idea in many areas. Of course there are exceptions (super computing, quantum computing, etc), but the barrier to entry for curious beginners seems much lower than other scientific fields.

[ZephyrBlu]

We're onto NewSQL now.

[XorNot]

Great, got literally anything which is making a testable prediction to advance physics? No? Then come back when you do.

Physics isn't advancing because everything is degenerate to the standard model - any bold new idea still fails to predict an accessible experimental regime which would rule out alternatives.

[ramraj07]

Physics is a special case. Either we are unimaginative or we have truly started reaching the limits of what can and cannot be found. I think it's a mix of both but also I'm not a physicist so don't listen to me too much.

You might accuse me of calling Physicists of being unimaginative but I truly believe that to be the case. The most fascinating topic in this regard is the alcubierre drive; before that concept became famous when I asked any Physicist if we are truly stuck in our solar system for eternity due to light speed limit they said yes, it's actually mathematically absurd to even think of any other possibility. Then this topic comes, and as impossible as it sounds it's at least not absurd mathematically (absurd physically still, sure but I feel theres a difference). So it's wierd that more Physicists are not grabbing at crazy tails like this and truly push what their imagination can conjure up.

[cycomanic]

The scientist fighting against the establishment is always a popular twist on a discovery. That's why popular science articles often emphasise this aspect. The reality is much more complex and the above happens very rarely. Regarding physics for example, give me the last theory that went against the establishment and took a generation to be accepted. I really can't think of any in the last 80 years. Maybe EPR, or Bells inequality, but that took so long, because experiments could only be done quite recently. I would also argue it is not really a case of research against the establishment.

Also let's remember that the researchers mentioned by others above, were all running successful labs despite their ideas not being widely accepted. The reason why these theories take so long to be accepted is more a case of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" than "we don't like the theory".

[medstrom]

>Regarding physics for example, give me the last theory that went against the establishment and took a generation to be accepted.

Everett branches ("many worlds")?

[cycomanic]

That's not science in the strict sense, but interpretation (so more philosophy).

AFAIK, so far nobody has come up with a way to devise a test that could falsify any of the interpretations of quantum theory, which really is required to be a valid scientific theory.

Moreover, there has never been much dogma around interpretations of quantum theory. A highly recommended read is Ghost in the Atom by Paul Davies, which consists of interviews with many physicists about their quantum interpretations. It shows that people have had a wide variety of interpretations for a long time. The many world interpretation has become more popular, but it was already around in the 80s and certainly not being ridiculed.

[deepnotderp]

Indeed. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions lays this out well

[heriol]

I think there's a wide gulf between healthy skepticism and mockery or dismissal. It should be totally acceptable (if not laudable) to investigate unpopular or long-tail ideas. Sure, a lot of them will not amount to anything, but you also have a chance of discovering something totally unexpected.

[readflaggedcomm]

From the article:

>Other researchers “rolled their eyes in horror” when he presented his theory, Jacob recalled in his memoir, The Statue Within. “With a little encouragement, my audience would have jeered and left,” he wrote.

Skepticism and contempt are distinct and disparate feelings.

[pid_0]

conservative and skeptical are not the same thing

Science should be absolutely progressive in that ALL questions are asked and ALL hypotheses are tested, with a significant amount of skepticism and critical analysis.

[lrossi]

Right, maybe “conservative” was not the best choice of word as it has many meanings. I was thinking about “cautious”, not “traditionalist”. Sorry for the confusion, I’m not a native speaker.

[gnramires]

The dichotomy of 'skepticism' vs 'open-mindedness' doesn't capture all that is important about scientific inquiry (specifically, both of those are important of course).

One approach to Science I think is really illustrative is Wheeler's[1] 'radical conservatism': you should accept, and seek, radical ideas, under a skeptical, formal, foundation.

So for example, if someone proposes a "free-energy" device with some outlandish explanation, that a priori isn't radical conservatism, because while the proposal is radical, it clashes with the conservative basis of local energy conservation of all modern physics (or maybe with the 2nd law of thermodynamics).

However, for example in General Relativity, the question of energy conservation at extremely large scales is not well settled. So that's something you could explore, without letting the fear of ridicule stop you (for breaking energy conservation), as long as you retain solid foundations[2]. Not only that, but this kind of outlandish idea is often how science moves forward, not by making the most obvious hypotheses about established theories (which we already largely know the answer for!) -- but it's difficult to naively distinguish from crackpottery.

By solid foundations, I mean you can even revise your physical principles, as long as they explain available evidence and you're able to formalize them to a good degree. Also by 'radical' it is meant that we shouldn't judge ideas by whether they are outlandish or not (Feynman writes extensively about this in his talks) -- Nature doesn't seem to be particularly concerned with seeming outlandish[3]. So to get rid of this bias, you can flip the coin and go after outlandish ideas (ideally simply unbiased, but it's a strategy).

See Kip Thorne's memoir, which I haven't read to completion but I'm sure is good:

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1901/1901.06623.pdf

[1] (the great friend from Feynman and with enormous contributions)

[2] In GR there is some very non-intutive large scale behavior: you can move without reaction mass in vacuum, which naively would seem radical, and violating conservation of momentum. However, it's allowed, and proven!:

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/886/swimming-in-...

[3] In reality, what defines what's "bizarre", "outlandish", "unintuitive" for us, are (1) Our previous experiences in the world, (2) Our coded instincts and neural architecture. There's no guarantee those will be valid when extrapolated to a different domain: objects at very small scales, very large scales, very high energies, etc.

[ukj]

What's the "right balance" between Type I and Type II errors when assessing the quality/potential of new research?

[marvin]

I disagree almost 100% with this. The most novel scientific ideas are so wild they're almost in crackpot territory. Novel ideas in general are ideas no one has ever explored before. And while most science is incremental, most science is also...not very useful or interesting. I'm sure that scientific funding could be cut 50% without any noticeable negative impact, assuming the right 50% were cut. (That is of course the difficult question, so I'm not literally advocating this).

Conservativism is a very bad trait to have in scientific roles. It's not as bad as being dumb, not being curious or not intensely seeking the truth, but on a system level it will steer the ship in the wrong direction.

Paul Graham recently wrote some essays that explored these ideas in a much clearer and more precise way. To me they were just nagging in the back of my mind for a long time. Recommended reading if you've got a few minutes. http://paulgraham.com/think.html