Comments on: Looking for a Hard-Headed Blogger

By: Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD

Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 11:14:40 +0000

Looking for a Hard-Headed Blogger

Sir. You will not find any. Bloging is the think tank. we blog to put our thought to others and think what they think of our thoughts while you in turn churn up the best and put this in your white paper or blue papers format and sell this to all.
Is this fair?

I thank you.

Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa.

By: Robin Hanson

Robin Hanson — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:22:35 +0000

William, I agree these traits are common at all levels; but it is my weak impression that they are more common to stronger degrees at higher levels.

Paul, yes even someone only interested in ideas would find an instrumental value in income and status. But such people could be distinguished by their showing less interest in income and status.

Michael, yes nice example, and nice article by Graham.

Nathan, the more likely bias of mine would be to not appreciate the kinds of status I may acheive by pursuing ideas my way.

By: Nathan Iver O'Sullivan

Nathan Iver O'Sullivan — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 02:35:00 +0000

Robin,

You have always struck me as a sort of academic iconoclast, shunning the easily attainable academic spotlight in favor of a life of pure intellectual excursion. If I’m right, you are a fitting counterexample of the “fine feathered friend.” Given your predisposition, have you considered that you might be biased to see status-seeking where none exists?

By: _Felix

_Felix — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 02:13:53 +0000

Being interested in ideas, at all, may itself be motivated by material considerations, and not as holy and worthy as you set it up to be. I contend that in the most ideal world I can imagine, I wouldn’t ever have to concentrate. Though I expect I’d get my kicks from creativity of some kind, I’d prefer that it came to me intuitively, without my ever particularly thinking about anything (I find it a strain). Therefore my interest in ideas is material, even mercenary, because realism requires me to pay attention now and again in order to have a nice time and get the good stuff.

This somewhat excuses people who “sell out”.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 01:35:16 +0000

Hopefully A.,

I think they actually didn’t respect my research. There are a lot of different ways to solve statistics problems, and it’s natural among people who have success using method A to aasume that method B won’t work so well. Then there’s the usual groupthink that goes on. But, yeah, I think they were sincere in their disrespect. They just became overcommitted to their position and weren’t looking for disconfirming evidence. Also, unfortunately, their social setting at that time encouraged outrageous attitudes.

For more on my motivations for pluralism, see these remarks on an article from 1997 called “No Bayesians in foxholes.”

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 00:15:53 +0000

Creative people have to make a living too. Its a lot harder to find an income as an academic when your subjects are obscure people and orphan topics, fascinating as they may be. Certainly some do and we are all the better for it, but for many it is not an option as there is by definition a smaller pool of jobs to support obscure and unfunded subjects. Perhaps it easiest late in one’s career, once you have already established a record doing work on popular people and boring well-funded topics.

By: Michael Nielsen

Michael Nielsen — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 00:13:12 +0000

An amusing piece of data in this regard: when Australia's main academic funding body announced special "priority areas" that would receive more funding, the number of applications in those areas pretty much doubled from 16% to 33%. I personally knew many people who all of a sudden became "interested" in those areas. Paul Graham has some interesting related thoughts here.

By: Hopefully Anonymous

Hopefully Anonymous — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 23:41:17 +0000

Andrew,
Do you think they ACTUALLY didn’t respect your research, or do you think they PERFORMED a lack of respect for your research? Because one may be irrational and could reduce their odds of retaining relative heirarchical advantage relative to their zero sum heirarchy competitors, whereas the other could be a rational self-interest optimizing move for various reasons.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 23:02:26 +0000

Robin,

It’s a tricky issue because even our best ideas become even better when publicized, so others can try them out, point out their flaws, improve them, etc. (This is one of the main motivations for this blog, I assume.) In research as in other fields of life, this leads inevitably to “politics,” brown-nosing, and all the rest. I don’t know of any easy answers here.

It’s something I’ve thought about a lot, especially since I used to work at a place where my most of my colleagues did not respect my research. This taught me an appreciation for pluralism, which in statistical research implies having respect for methods that I probably wouldn’t use myself.

By: William Newman

William Newman — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 18:09:16 +0000

You write ‘The more successful a group, the more of them that tend to be such “fine feathered friends.”‘ But my impression is that at least two of the three traits (preferring bad arguments by well-known people, and seeking attention for their insights rather than weighing promising insights) run all the way down the success spectrum. They seem very common even in policy debates on the elevator, or between bored junior high school students.

I would basically agree with a weaker statement, “one of the disappointing things about even the most successful groups I’ve been in is that these traits are common all the way to the top.” But is the stronger form, that these traits are significantly more common at the top, really the case?