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Braben - Scientific Freedom: The Elixir of Civilization [d43d63f1]

Tags: books, episteme

1. 1 - The Damocles Zone

Talks about how the zone is irreversible, requires broad solutions to major problems

1.1. Discussion

  • Richard Hamming - Everything starts with fluids or dyanmics
  • Brett Victor - Work on problems that people don't realize as problems

  • How to tackle science

    • valid modes for the future?

      • spin many plates

      • centrally directed

        • khnuzian dynamics of science

  • What does braben view on scientific production?

    • Finding the projects and finding the applications of the results

  • What is the root cause of the inability to fund these?

    • BP defunded the venture research program, now no one is willing to fund
  • Commitment is what transforms ordinary research into transformative research
  • What works on your problem? Why is a problem yours?

2. 2 - Scientific Freedom and Transformative Research

2.1. Discussion

  • Inprecision of what is transformative research

    • This may be actually deliberate, so not to exclude things you can't solve
  • Can you separate the scientist from the problem?

  • Do solutions have to be structured?

    • How do scientists see themselves?

  • Are the hard problems the important problems?

    • How do we select for ideas?
    • Are good ideas expected to bubble up ot the top?
  • Should we select for problems that can't be separated? Some problems are hard, but they can be separated, but this is orthongal to being hard
  • Braben conflates the difficult & the interesting

  • Expand/exploit for problems?

    • When are you expanding into new fields?

  • Why is freedom important

    • Monte Carlo methods

      • random walks
    • Generates higher variance, but not necessarily better results
    • Freedom is actually a constratining factor because now you no longer need to worry about scale
    • success attracts other people, and that in turn becomes ossification

    • localism

      • each field must define what their freedom is

  • VC funding

    • inputs/outputs are both money

      • "do things that don't scale"?

3. 3 - Mismanagement by Objectives

  • objectification

    • adoption of math where it does not apply?

      • economics, sociology, etc
  • aligns with china's "china is run by engineers, US is run by lawyers"
  • enormous expenditures -> viruses are still killers -> isn't this objectification
  • grants are not mentored
  • "eastern medicine" -> orientalist approaches here

  • federal funding and freedom do not necessarily generate better approaches

    • middle east studies had freedom for quite a while
  • reshaping of capital markets post-2008
  • is the post-WWII euphoria Braben identifies real? Or is it just because of cheap money?
  • no investor seeking long term gains expects decisive short term returns

3.1. Discussion

  • Freedom/secrecy are at conflict
  • open science vs open source?
  • secrecy for whom?
  • can we enable younger scientists?

  • consensus

    • popularity
    • age increases
  • china? empowering younger researchers? chinese science statistics

  • need for harmonization capping discoveries? Everything is made by consensus?

    • peer review, collaborators

  • universities as a force for social change?

    • are we just admitting too many people?
  • Are the measurements bad? Should we stop measuring output? Or at least limit time-forward metrics?
  • Up or out promotion paths?

  • Calling out a focus on efficiency?

    • Mitchel: Economentality?
    • Redudancy is valuable -> gives replication
    • Legibility of research
    • measure outcomes -> is this reading the arrow backwards from assessing invidiual people?

  • the shift in the 70's seems to be a mentality shift:

    • science is no longer generically good
    • science needs to illuminate the future
  • metrics result in consensus because everyone aims towards the same thing

  • make scientists as early as possible?

    • stop treating scientific freedom as a reward?
  • popular media -> science has become homogenized
  • Lenin was a mushroom
  • What is consensus good for?

4. 4 - Searching for Planck's Successors

  • Threat Fatigue -> losing signals in all the noise
  • Adventure fund attempted to fund "risky" research in the UK in 2002

  • Braben suggests that peer review and consensus are the problem

    • scientist reputations are slowly earned and quickly damaged - 108
    • responsbility shared is responsbility denied

  • searching for the "best value for money" is what's leading to the reduction of risk

    • can this be harnessed? Can we capitalize on the risk somehow?
  • Braben suggests that confidence in your research leads to significant and transformative research

  • TR must select for "visionaries", not just glory-seekers

    • measure devotion/hunger

      • how? signals for these are quite bad
  • Musical chairs with the rules are what's being attempted with the smaller fixes on the grant cycle, we need to rethink all of it
  • langlands program and TR, how did this come about?
  • The Medical Research Council in the UK as an example