From an ’04 review of Robert Triver’s ’02 book Natural Selection and Social Theory: [Trivers’] directions on writing a classic paper …: 1. Pick an important topic. 2. Try to do a little sustained thinking on the topic, always keeping close to the task at hand.
You should spend some of the energy you spend blaming academics, on blaming the government agencies who provide grants, and on blaming the selective forces that decide who can get into academia. When DARPA puts out a grant solicitation for innovative work, people respond to it. But the vast majority of grant money available is for low-risk engineering problems.
But take the case of math. People spend a great deal of effort studying small, technical problems. This is true despite the fact that it is incredibly easy to assess how worthy a paper is (either a proof works or it doesn't, and it doesn't usually take long to figure out which), and for this reason outsiders can make a splash (like when Perelman came up with a proof of the poincare conjecture). So the theory you have outlined seems not to really explain this case even though the phenomena to be explained are not that different in any obvious way.
Of course math is open to the charge that the whole thing is a status game, but that sounds like a step too far.
I don't know how things work in the humanities, but in the sciences the biggest questions are generally either already well understood* or completely intractable.
* By "understood", I mean that we have equations that correctly predict the outcomes to twelve decimal places, not necessarily that anyone knows what those equations mean. Quantum mechanics, I'm looking at you.
Let's not forget that bloggers are also signallers. They want to signal their high degree of intellectual progress and courageousness in attacking the "big issues" that academics don't want to touch. Also, let's keep in mind academics have a career to worry about. Bloggers don't generally risk their careers with their blog posts.
I wonder how well an academic "journal" (virtual or otherwise) would work if the author's names were not published until a year or more later?
Academics seem to be incentivized to view works as impressive that they think their peers will also view as impressive, either now or later down the line (as is often the case with contrarians). Since understanding academic papers is costly, they use heuristics to decide which ones to read, based on the papers perceived impressiveness. Robin seems to criticize this heuristic, but has he offered a viable alternative?
Bloggers will blog because they need an answer to something that is gnawing at them Where else will they get such diversity of opinions for free. How many times has a blogger had an aha moment after receiving a piece of information that ties all the previous pieces of information together. Anyone care to count?
We pay with our time and effort to visit the blogs.
You should spend some of the energy you spend blaming academics, on blaming the government agencies who provide grants, and on blaming the selective forces that decide who can get into academia. When DARPA puts out a grant solicitation for innovative work, people respond to it. But the vast majority of grant money available is for low-risk engineering problems.
But take the case of math. People spend a great deal of effort studying small, technical problems. This is true despite the fact that it is incredibly easy to assess how worthy a paper is (either a proof works or it doesn't, and it doesn't usually take long to figure out which), and for this reason outsiders can make a splash (like when Perelman came up with a proof of the poincare conjecture). So the theory you have outlined seems not to really explain this case even though the phenomena to be explained are not that different in any obvious way.
Of course math is open to the charge that the whole thing is a status game, but that sounds like a step too far.
I don't know how things work in the humanities, but in the sciences the biggest questions are generally either already well understood* or completely intractable.
* By "understood", I mean that we have equations that correctly predict the outcomes to twelve decimal places, not necessarily that anyone knows what those equations mean. Quantum mechanics, I'm looking at you.
These subjects just might be that hard. Or meaningless.
survivor bias ... hey, the roulette wheel is a great way to win money!!
And the contrast between what is expected of bloggers and what is expected of academics is why academics have to be careful when blogging.
Let's not forget that bloggers are also signallers. They want to signal their high degree of intellectual progress and courageousness in attacking the "big issues" that academics don't want to touch. Also, let's keep in mind academics have a career to worry about. Bloggers don't generally risk their careers with their blog posts.
I wonder how well an academic "journal" (virtual or otherwise) would work if the author's names were not published until a year or more later?
Academics seem to be incentivized to view works as impressive that they think their peers will also view as impressive, either now or later down the line (as is often the case with contrarians). Since understanding academic papers is costly, they use heuristics to decide which ones to read, based on the papers perceived impressiveness. Robin seems to criticize this heuristic, but has he offered a viable alternative?
"Neglect of important subjects is remarkable if we assume academics mainly seek intellectual progress."
All metaphor yearn for implementation in their own way.
Bloggers will blog because they need an answer to something that is gnawing at them Where else will they get such diversity of opinions for free. How many times has a blogger had an aha moment after receiving a piece of information that ties all the previous pieces of information together. Anyone care to count?
We pay with our time and effort to visit the blogs.
Also for the same reasons that bloggers blog.
What a great gift to give each other.
But if blogger customers will not actually pay much for such progress, it is not clear bloggers will bother.
Uh oh. Is this a subtle call for OB readers to start making donations to the Robin Hanson fund?