On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 6:54 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 5/22/2014 4:56 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: > > > "Science: the method" is all about generating hypothesis and testing > them. Generating hypothesis is a creative process, and I don't think that > academia was ever a particularly good environment for creativity. It's > relationship to it is a bit bipolar: it eventually glorifies the successful > creative thinkers, but it fights creativity every step of the way until > then. Part of this behaviour is for good reasons, but part is pathological, > I would say. > > > Some people call it "fighting creativity every step of the way", some > people call it "testing the theory". > Sure, this is why I said "sometimes for good reason". > The current thread about Tronnies is a good example. > It is also a great example of actual peer-review being done. People who submit to scientific journals are painfully aware that you don't get feed back of this quality so often. If your idea is too "out there", many reviewers won't even go to the trouble of properly understanding what you are saying. Some funny blasts from the past, to illustrate what I'm referring to: http://www.fang.ece.ufl.edu/reject.html Of course I'm not saying that all scientists are like this or that all academia is rotten. I'm just saying that it is a common problem, it seems to be getting worse and it should be acknowledged. > Ross apparently doesn't have that creative-stifiling academica training. > But as a result he isn't aware of all the tests that current theories have > passed and why his theory, creative though it may be, is going to generally > be ignored unless he shows it can pass all those tests too AND add > something. > Physics is perhaps the field that benefits the most from traditional academic constraints. It is a highly self-contained field, where the low-hanging fruit has been picked and progress depends on mega-projects like the hadron collider. I think. An interesting counter-example is Polly Matzinger: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Matzinger She had the intuition for the "Danger Model" of the immune system while working as a waitress at a pub and overhearing discussion that immunologists from the nearby University frequented. One of them, Professor Robert Schwab liked her ideas and invited her to do a PhD with him. So this appears to be a combination of raw talent and a mind untainted by pre-conceptions in the field, leading to a completely "out of the box" idea. Best, Telmo. > > Brent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
