To Spread Science, Keep It Secret

Followup to:  Joy in Discovery, Bind Yourself to Reality, Scientific Evidence, Scarcity

Sometimes I wonder if the Pythagoreans had the right idea.

Yes, I've written about how "science" is inherently public.  I've written that "science" is distinguished from merely rational knowledge by the in-principle ability to reproduce scientific experiments for yourself, to know without relying on authority.  I've said that "science" should be defined as the publicly accessible knowledge of humankind.  I've even suggested that future generations will regard all papers not published in an open-access journal as non-science, i.e., it can't be part of the public knowledge of humankind if you make people pay to read it.

But that's only one vision of the future.  In another vision, the knowledge we now call "science" is taken out of the public domain - the books and journals hidden away, guarded by mystic cults of gurus wearing robes, requiring fearsome initiation rituals for access - so that more people will actually study it.

I mean, right now, people can study science but they don't.

"Scarcity", it's called in social psychology.  What appears to be in limited supply, is more highly valued.  And this effect is especially strong with information - we're much more likely to try to obtain information that we believe is secret, and to value it more when we do obtain it.

With science, I think, people assume that if the information is freely available, it must not be important.  So instead people join cults that have the sense to keep their Great Truths secret.  The Great Truth may actually be gibberish, but it's more satisfying than coherent science, because it's secret.

Science is the great Purloined Letter of our times, left out in the open and ignored.

Sure, scientific openness helps the scientific elite.  They've already been through the initiation rituals.  But for the rest of the planet, science is kept secret a hundred times more effectively by making it freely available, than if its books were guarded in vaults and you had to walk over hot coals to get access.  (This being a fearsome trial indeed, since the great secrets of insulation are only available to Physicist-Initiates of the Third Level.)

If scientific knowledge were hidden in ancient vaults (rather than hidden in inconvenient pay-for-access journals), at least then people would try to get into the vaults.  They'd be desperate to learn science.  Especially when they saw the power that Eighth Level Physicists could wield, and were told that they weren't allowed to know the explanation.

And if you tried to start a cult around oh, say, Scientology, you'd get some degree of public interest, at first.  But people would very quickly start asking uncomfortable questions like "Why haven't you given a public demonstration of your Eighth Level powers, like the Physicists?" and "How come none of the Master Mathematicians seem to want to join your cult?" and "Why should I follow your Founder when he isn't an Eighth Level anything outside his own cult?" and "Why should I study your cult first, when the Dentists of Doom can do things that are so much more impressive?"

When you look at it from that perspective, the escape of math from the Pythagorean cult starts to look like a major strategic blunder for humanity.

Now, I know what you're going to say:  "But science is surrounded by fearsome initiation rituals!  Plus it's inherently difficult to learn!  Why doesn't that count?"  Because the public thinks that science is freely available, that's why.  If you're allowed to learn, it must not be important enough to learn.

It's an image problem, people taking their cues from others' attitudes.  Just anyone can walk into the supermarket and buy a light bulb, and nobody looks at it with awe and reverence.  The physics supposedly aren't secret (even though you don't know), and there's a one-paragraph explanation in the newspaper that sounds vaguely authoritative and convincing - essentially, no one treats the lightbulb as a sacred mystery, so neither do you.

Even the simplest little things, completely inert objects like crucifixes, can become magical if everyone looks at them like they're magic.  But since you're theoretically allowed to know why the light bulb works without climbing the mountain to find the remote Monastery of Electricians, there's no need to actually bother to learn.

Now, because science does in fact have initiation rituals both social and cognitive, scientists are not wholly dissatisfied with their science.  The problem is that, in the present world, very few people bother to study science in the first place.  Science cannot be the true Secret Knowledge, because just anyone is allowed to know it - even though, in fact, they don't.

If the Great Secret of Natural Selection, passed down from Darwin Who Is Not Forgotten, was only ever imparted to you after you paid $2000 and went through a ceremony involving torches and robes and masks and sacrificing an ox, then when you were shown the fossils, and shown the optic cable going through the retina under a microscope, and finally told the Truth, you would say "That's the most brilliant thing ever!" and be satisfied.  After that, if some other cult tried to tell you it was actually a bearded man in the sky 6000 years ago, you'd laugh like hell.

And you know, it might actually be more fun to do things that way.  Especially if the initiation required you to put together some of the evidence for yourself - together, or with classmates - before you could tell your Science Sensei you were ready to advance to the next level.  It wouldn't be efficient, sure, but it would be fun.

If humanity had never made the mistake - never gone down the religious path, and never learned to fear anything that smacks of religion - then maybe the Ph.D. granting ceremony would involve litanies and chanting, because, hey, that's what people like.  Why take the fun out of everything?

Maybe we're just doing it wrong.

And no, I'm not seriously proposing that we try to reverse the last five hundred years of openness and classify all the science secret.  At least, not at the moment.  Efficiency is important for now, especially in things like medical research.  I'm just explaining why it is that I won't tell anyone the Secret of how the ineffable difference between blueness and redness arises from mere atoms for less than $100,000 -

Ahem!  I meant to say, I'm telling you about this vision of an alternate Earth, so that you give science equal treatment with cults.  So that you don't undervalue scientific truth when you learn it, just because it doesn't seem to be protected appropriately to its value.  Imagine the robes and masks.  Visualize yourself creeping into the vaults and stealing the Lost Knowledge of Newton.  And don't be fooled by any organization that does use robes and masks, unless they also show you the data.

People seem to have holes in their minds for Esoteric Knowledge, Deep Secrets, the Hidden Truth.  And I'm not even criticizing this psychology!  There are deep secret esoteric hidden truths, like quantum mechanics or Bayes-structure.  We've just gotten into the habit of presenting the Hidden Truth in a very unsatisfying way, wrapped up in false mundanity.

But if the holes for secret knowledge are not filled by true beliefs, they will be filled by false beliefs.  There is nothing but science to learn - the emotional energy must either be invested in reality, or wasted in total nonsense, or destroyed.  For myself, I think it is better to invest the emotional energy; fun should not be needlessly cast away.

Right now, we've got the worst of both worlds.  Science isn't really free, because the courses are expensive and the textbooks are expensive.  But the public thinks that anyone is allowed to know, so it must not be important.

Ideally, you would want to arrange things the other way around.

Comments

[Hopefully Anonymous]

Great, interesting, thought-provoking post, Eliezer. As you suggest towards the end, a multiplex of strategies regarding relating science to the public may be best.

I'm for creating straussian brands of widespread and/or fast-growing belief systems to compete with their sincere or exploitive versions. For example, rather than a cult of science made from scratch, I think a version of evangelical christianity where the top executives are focused on making the behavior of the masses more in our rational self-interest would be the better approach (although it would be interesting to see both tried).

[Psychohistorian]

Insightful, as always, but this seems like it may have the esoteric value of some knowledge the wrong way around. There are certain questions, like "What is the meaning of life?" that science cannot answer the way people want to hear (as, "that questions is incoherent and pointless" is rarely viewed as satisfactory, regardless of its accuracy). It seems people choose religion because they are seeking answers to some such question (or, because their parents chose it), and they end up swallowing the earth being 6000 years old almost as an afterthought.

[Grant]

I love most of your posts, but I think you might be off on this one.

Why successful cultures reward people who tried to discover and understand knowledge that was already known? I don't think they would; I think they'd reward people who go after secrets, mysteries, etc. People who make use of knowledge (preexisting or otherwise) for their own gain are of course rewarded anyway, but for the most part I don't think that describes science very well, does it?

What would be the purpose of rewarding people (who cannot make use of the knowledge) to 'discover' things already in the public domain? Wouldn't we rather have them striving to solve puzzles? I know its enjoyable for many of us to 'discover' science on our own, but for your average person I think thats a waste of time. In other words, I think scarcity in knowledge is beneficial for society, though maybe not for science nuts.

Can't you usually audit courses in most universities for free?

[Lowly Undergrad]

I think I, along with Grant, may have to disagree with portions of this entry. It seems your basic point is that if science was set up in the way the scientology and other cults are, it would obtain an increase in interest and pursuit. The problem I see with that is that cult knowledge is easy; science is hard. Learning a couple of simple beliefs at each level is simple. However, much like many people who would love to be a CEO of a major corporation, but abstain from attempting to achieve this goal due to the increased stress and demands of the position, the "cult of science" would face a similar issue. Learning advanced mathematics is not for the timid.

[Psy-Kosh]

Well, _ideally_ one would want us to be smart enough to not automatically overvalue hidden information or undervalue availible information. :)

Also, I'm reminded of a bit from the Discworld book Thief of Time. Kaos says to Sweeper something to the effect of "...You know all the hidden wisdoms. No, more than that. I suspect you are even wiser. You know the explicit wisdoms, the knowledge hidden in plain sight and ignored by most as they seek hidden knowledge."

[Anonymous]

What are you doing? Aren't you supposed to be saving the world?

Seriously, what the hell is this? I pay you to make a friendly AI and instead I find you BLOGGING?!

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

Anonymous,

The Singularity Institute has a human-resources problem and a PR problem. I've been taking haphazard potshots at this for 8 years and it hasn't worked. So I'm taking the time to write out full explanations, and the basics, and will eventually produce a book, and teenagers will read the book, go on to read other books, and then be hired by SIAI 7 years later. That, I'm afraid, is how it has always worked around here.

Also, if you're an actual SIAI donor, please identify yourself and cite amount donated - via private email, if you prefer.

[Sam B]

This post assumes a very positive view of humanity. It assumes that people aren't studying science in large enough numbers because the knowledge isn't exciting and attractive enough. The alternative assumption is that people aren't studying science because they're thick, or lazy, or both.

In Britain, fewer and fewer young people are choosing to study science at A-level (16-18) and university, despite the increased number of them continuing education after compulsory education ends (16). This is mainly blamed on them choosing to do new, 'soft' options, of which Media Studies is the primary scapegoat (but a Google for 'Mickey Mouse degrees' or a flick through the prospectus of a lower-order university will find plenty of others). This can't be attributed to the non-secret nature of science, because Media Studies is just as non-secret. If the open nature of science was really the problem, it would be a problem shared by every single subject from science to media studies to plumbing apprenticeships, and enrolment would be falling in every subject, not just science.

I don't actually disagree with the main point of the post - that secret knowledge is more attractive - but it wouldn't solve the problem of lack of interest in science. If science went cultish, they would see a short-term increase in interest, but then media studies academics would hide their 'knowledge' as well, and we'd be back where we started. Even if the knowledge was secret I've no doubt that most young people would consider the secret media studies knowledge more attractive than the secret science knowledge. "The chanting isn't as weird, and the robes are better, and even under those hoods you can tell the Physics cult is a total sausagefest."

[Roko]

Eliezer: "The Singularity Institute has a human-resources problem and a PR problem. I've been taking haphazard potshots at this for 8 years and it hasn't worked. So I'm taking the time to write out full explanations, and the basics, and will eventually produce a book, and teenagers will read the book, go on to read other books, and then be hired by SIAI 7 years later. That, I'm afraid, is how it has always worked around here."

Interesting. And probably a good strategy. In my humble opinion, the most worthwhile things that have been written on the subject of Friendly AI have been written by Eliezer Yudkowsky. But who's to say that Eliezer has all the answers? It takes a lot of wisdom to realize that your best strategy might be to convince a large number of others to work on a problem that might be too difficult for any one person - including yourself - to solve.

I can personally testify that Eliezer's writing was instrumental in alerting me to the urgency and importance of working on friendly AI, and that is indeed what I plan to do.

[Will Pearson]

"Right now, we've got the worst of both worlds. Science isn't really free, because the courses are expensive and the textbooks are expensive. But the public thinks that anyone is allowed to know, so it must not be important."

Anyone is allowed to pick up and read a bible. They are even given away free! The public still seems to rate the teachings in that though.

If I was trying to spread science, I wouldn't make it scare, I would make it social. How about a roleplaying game, Scientist: The Discovery! Scenarios are scientific problems with real world data and the players level up by solving them. Or perhaps fantastical, such as deflecting asteroids, but using real equations.

Also cults are not the thing you have to get science to the level of, today it is celebrity worship/sports following/world of warcraft.

The whole chanting thing put me off religion, I'd much prefer a ritual dance. And no bloody sacrifices.

I'm curious what exactly your HR problems are with SIAI, it doesn't seem to have any jobs or research posts open.

[Caledonian]

Most people don't know how light bulbs work because it doesn't matter how light bulbs work. They can't use that knowledge in their daily lives, so it really doesn't matter how difficult it is to acquire that data - as long as it's difficult enough, it's not worthwhile to expend the effort.

Being a physicist doesn't give you any nifty powers, and the phenomena they have the knowledge to predict don't affect the everyday lives of human beings on a perceptible level.

Most people weren't clamoring to learn the Pythagorean secrets, either.

[Aziz Poonawalla]

Elezier,

The reason I keep coming back to this blog is because you madden me. Long time reader, first time commentor. I appreciate the thought experiment you are conducting in this post but I think some of your own biases are driving the theory.

For example, you equate science with magic. I suspect this is because you have a romanticized bias towards science instead of practical, mundane scientific experience in the trenches. Arthur C. Clarke would be happy, god rest his soul, but the actual practice of science is the opposite of magic. The scientific method simply could not survive in an arcane mysterium context. As a practicing scientist, I not only rely on the knowledge of my fellow initiates to Ars Scientifica to hold my work to its rigour, but also the very public nature of the peer review process itself. There's a reason why PLoS and arXiv are so popular and groundbreaking - these are innovations in the process of peer review that drive us towards greater public transparency, not less. If Ars Scientifica were walled off from the public sphere and wrapped in layers of ritual, it would hamper the very process of inquiry and most importantly self-critique that is essential to the function of Science itself (and magnify the very real flaws and problems in the Method and peer review that persist today).

Secondly, you equate religion with the very small, very specific, and very (disproportionately so) vocal subset that is intelligent design/young earth creationism/etc. This is likely because you are biased in regards to the sample of religious folk you find yourself debating with online and in person. Ordinary deeply religious folk like myself are simply not insecure enough about their faith to care much that you keep referring to religion as a whole as an original sin of rationality (though I do admire your cleverness in inverting the metaphor!). However, that said, you tipped your hand a bit when you wrote above that "if some other cult tried to tell you [The Truth] was actually a bearded man in the sky 6000 years ago, you'd laugh like hell." I think at least part of the underlying drive behind the thought experiment at hand is the wish that science were accorded more respect, so that it least would have parity with pseudoscience. But if science has a PR problem, it is structural. It's simply not worth the effort worrying about it. I think Science succeeds in making an impact on people's lives irrespective of their respect for it.

By focusing only on the bearded sky dude you are avoiding the much deeper intellectual challenge of grappling with the far more mature manifestations of religion, the majority of which transcend minor details like young earths, bearded men, or whatever. The kernel of religion is not the trappings of the stereotype you invoke but rather the simple idea that existence is deeper than what can be accessed by the finite tools we possess.

I am fond of arguing that Godel's Theorem points the way towards the superset of knowledge that contains all that Science can discover and all that Religion seeks to uncover. I don't think ritualizing Science to make it more like religion, or systematizing Religion to make it more like science, is the answer.

[spindizzy]

Many more people are studying science than can actually hope to find jobs in the field.

The real problem is not a scarcity of people, but a scarcity of _smart_ people. The average guy in the street will not improve his own life or anyone else's by the study of science. Posts for lab technicians are easy enough to fill, after all.

Conversely, the people who really can make a difference by and large do not need any encouragement.

On a practical note, I would be very interested in a discussion of the best ways an individual can make a monetary / political / social contribution to the development of an AGI. Assuming this has already been argued out, does anyone have a link?

[Silas]

Psychohistorian: Insightful, as always, but this seems like it may have the esoteric value of some knowledge the wrong way around. There are certain questions, like "What is the meaning of life?" that science cannot answer the way people want to hear (as, "that questions is incoherent and pointless" is rarely viewed as satisfactory, regardless of its accuracy).

I don't think that's the answer science gives, at least, not the complete answer. This would be an excellent example of "wrong questions" that Eliezer Yudkowsky discussed before (note: he linked this despite it not containing the solution to qualia suggested in the anchor text) and an excellent opportunity to right the wrong question.

"What is the meaning of life?"; rephrase as your confusion--> "Why do I want to know the meaning of life?"; taboo "meaning of" --> "Why do I want to know what signficance life has beyond what I can observe?" and so on.

Dismissing the first question should not be the end of it.

[Tom McCabe]

"So I'm taking the time to write out full explanations, and the basics, and will eventually produce a book, and teenagers will read the book, go on to read other books, and then be hired by SIAI 7 years later."

I would certainly enjoy reading your book, and I'm confident that thousands of other people would enjoy it as well. However, I'm not confident that a book on rationality alone will do much for recruiting- Hofstadter's GEB was well-written and very widely read, and it didn't help recruit people for any specific organization.

"I'm just explaining why it is that I won't tell anyone the Secret of how the ineffable difference between blueness and redness arises from mere atoms for less than $100,000 -"

I'll give you $100 for a reasonably detailed explanation of this, as long as you publish it under the GFDL or a similar license.

[Silas]

"I'm just explaining why it is that I won't tell anyone the Secret of how the ineffable difference between blueness and redness arises from mere atoms for less than $100,000 -"

I'll give you $100 for a reasonably detailed explanation of this, as long as you publish it under the GFDL or a similar license.

I can think of a reason why Eliezer Yudkowsky won't take you up on this offer...

I mean, above and beyond not being able to hold up his end ;-)

[kevin]

Mastering science is hard work...and it requires a willingness to ask hard questions and explore them wherever they may lead. Most secret cults survive by demanding allegiance to the faith, obedience to doctrine, and rejecting any critical examination of those beliefs or their origins.

Science, despite its lack of pop culture acclaim, is responsible for most of the progress in this world---progress against disease, against poverty, progress in describing and understanding the world and the universe in which we live. The openness of science to questions and to critical examination, and its adherence to standards of verification, make it the best method we have for separating truth from myth.

It does not however rid the world of stupid people....and that, my friend, is the real problem

[John]

In Nick Bostrom's paper on the survival of humanity, several potential catastrophe scenarios are technological ones. That makes me think that it might actually be a bad idea to popularize science.

The irony here is that information about how to create a catastrophe - how to make a nuke, how to construct viruses in a laboratory, how to make a nanobot - is just about the only scientific information that people are hiding. (Fortunatetly, though, they don't make a big deal about the fact they're hiding it.)

[Nato Welch]

Animal sacrifices have been replaced by DRM.

I haven't followed this to any of numerous possible conclusions, but I found the analogy irresistible. Think about it.

[Rolf Nelson]

@spindizzy:

No, this hasn't been "argued out", and even if it had been in the past, the "single best answer" would differ from person to person and from year to year. I would suggest starting a thread on SL4 or on SIAI's Singularity Discussion list.