[Natsu]

> This is why it is dangerous to think that the best scientific theories always prevail and that science is a meritocracy.

This is because people form trapped priors and so some scientific advances come "one funeral at a time", but it's equally dangerous to think that science won't or cannot form clear consensus on observable, factual matters or that if there isn't always meritocracy, then there must be none.

Science is the only reason we can even have this conversation right now, after all.

[j7ake]

Maybe from a far it seems that it is a meritocracy but there are documented examples of people falling through the cracks.

Eg Douglas Prasher did nobel prize winning work but couldn’t stay in academia.

Virginijus Siksnys did nobel prize work but never got the nobel prize.

The list goes on at the nobel prize level, so just consider the people who fall through the cracks for first class work, but not nobel prize level.

[peanutcrisis]

At this point, I’d ask what you mean by meritocracy here. Is the (supposed) lack of meritocracy in the awarding of accolades the same as a lack of meritocracy when it comes to the recognition of the actual science done? Clearly from your comments, while these scientists didn’t win the Nobel prize, their work certainly got the recognition it did and made the impact it’s supposed to have.

This whole thread is a cesspool of bait and switch and moving of goalposts surrounding the idea of meritocracy. Has the Hacker News community always been so dogmatic about such topics, or is this a recent trend I’m observing in the last few years?

[j7ake]

Douglas Prasher didn’t make it in academia, he was a shuttle bus driver until Roger Tsien hired him back as an associate after prizes were won.

I don’t know what kind of goalposts you’re thinking about, but doing nobel prize work but not being able to have a career in science is evidence that people fall through the cracks of this supposed meritocratic structure.

[peanutcrisis]

The fact that prizes were won and he got hired back because of that are both evidence that merit is recognized. You made points that contradict your own stance.

The comment of mine you were replying to describes an example of the moving of goal posts; conflating the merit of the issuing of accolades with the merit of recognition of work allows one to fallaciously reject the notion of merit altogether if one of these definitions of merit fails. Yet clearly, they are not the same thing.

For what it's worth, meritocracy is not a topic that I have a concrete stance on (yet). However, the top comments for this topic lacks nuance, and resorts to the kind of motte and bailey arguments I remarked about earlier. Imagine trying to have a productive conversation about anti-corruption, only to get remarks like "anti-corruption has failed with respect to my specific conception of anti-corruption in some specific scenario, therefore anti-corruption as a whole is a terrible goal or ideal". Given how broad the notion of "anti-corruption" can be, someone's specific conception of it in some scenario doesn't (necessarily) represent every conception or instantiation of the notion of anti-corruption. It's in this broadness where nuance can be found, and unfortunately, I don't find that in the top comments.

[Natsu]

"Sometimes people do good work and don't win major awards" is hardly a rebuttal to the notion that meritocracy exists, because it's not some binary state. To say there's no such thing as merit, you have to say that recognition of merit is on average directionally wrong.

Given the huge technological advances of even just the past few decades, that's a pretty hard sell.

[j7ake]

Thanks for the quote but that’s clearly not what I said.

Try quoting my first paragraph instead

>>“Maybe from a far it seems that it is a meritocracy but there are documented examples of people falling through the cracks.”

Some nuance in the discussion would be appreciated.

[Natsu]

Well, we went from talking about whether the best 'scientific theories' were recognized to whether certain individuals won certain awards, so it's hard to do anything but broad strokes.

I'm not here trying to refute the idea that sometimes people get passed over undeservedly, I'm refuting the all too common idea that this means that meritocracy is binary and anyone ever getting passed over means that merit doesn't exist and cannot be recognized.

If you don't hold that idea then good, we don't have to argue.