Money, honors, influence - anything contingent on impressing an audience.
An externally motivated person is capable of doing good science, given the right incentives. However, the way science is funded in most of the world today provides incentives for showmanship, rather than results. This trend has already destroyed physics (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465092756) and computer science (http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/whats-w...) as respectable, intellectually honest fields.
Internally motivated people, driven purely by a love of their field's conceptual beauty, are invulnerable to having their goal system perverted by such systemic rot.
Physics hasn't been destroyed. I love your passion but your claims are sensationalist. I looked at the reviews of the book, and apparently it's about how particle physicists are headed in the wrong direction. Oh no.
> it's about how particle physicists are headed in the wrong direction. Oh no.
"Wrong," as the book's title suggests, is not a strong enough word.
The string theorists have proclaimed that we should no longer require a model of reality to make testable predictions. This should not be confused with an honest mistake, and the fact that a majority of the field's participants are in on the fraud is no excuse (when you lie for money, it is reasonable to call it fraud, whether or not the deed fits the narrow bounds of any legal definitions.) Physics has been Lysenkoized.
I fail to see how this is any kind of problem whatsoever, unless the externally motivated people impede the internally motivated people in such a way that negative progress is made.
> unless the externally motivated people impede the internally motivated people in such a way that negative progress is made
Is it not obvious to you that this must be the case? Every scientific field (and the set of professional researchers as a whole, I dare say) has a prevailing culture, like any other community. A scientific culture which rewards grantsmanship, bootlicking, and smoke-and-mirrors tricks is necessarily hostile to anyone who is genuinely devoted to advancing science.
Bring back Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, and their ilk. No grantsmanship, just buildings full of smart people working on whatever they like. That was the system which yielded the foundations for just about every technology you enjoy today.
Comments
> If they do something great... the response will be "Meh".
I still think that there are too many externally motivated people going into science, rather than too few.
By "externally motivated", do you mean money?
Money, honors, influence - anything contingent on impressing an audience.
An externally motivated person is capable of doing good science, given the right incentives. However, the way science is funded in most of the world today provides incentives for showmanship, rather than results. This trend has already destroyed physics (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465092756) and computer science (http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/whats-w...) as respectable, intellectually honest fields.
Internally motivated people, driven purely by a love of their field's conceptual beauty, are invulnerable to having their goal system perverted by such systemic rot.
Physics hasn't been destroyed. I love your passion but your claims are sensationalist. I looked at the reviews of the book, and apparently it's about how particle physicists are headed in the wrong direction. Oh no.
> it's about how particle physicists are headed in the wrong direction. Oh no.
"Wrong," as the book's title suggests, is not a strong enough word.
The string theorists have proclaimed that we should no longer require a model of reality to make testable predictions. This should not be confused with an honest mistake, and the fact that a majority of the field's participants are in on the fraud is no excuse (when you lie for money, it is reasonable to call it fraud, whether or not the deed fits the narrow bounds of any legal definitions.) Physics has been Lysenkoized.
I fail to see how this is any kind of problem whatsoever, unless the externally motivated people impede the internally motivated people in such a way that negative progress is made.
> unless the externally motivated people impede the internally motivated people in such a way that negative progress is made
Is it not obvious to you that this must be the case? Every scientific field (and the set of professional researchers as a whole, I dare say) has a prevailing culture, like any other community. A scientific culture which rewards grantsmanship, bootlicking, and smoke-and-mirrors tricks is necessarily hostile to anyone who is genuinely devoted to advancing science.
I was going to congratulate you on the biting neologism, but a depressing search revealed 'grantsmanship' to be a whole field of study :(
I challenge you to suggest a better system.
Bring back Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, and their ilk. No grantsmanship, just buildings full of smart people working on whatever they like. That was the system which yielded the foundations for just about every technology you enjoy today.
Bell Labs pretty much won the Netflix prize