I think part of what she's saying is that currently, fame is implicitly or explicitly the goal and standard by which scientists are evaluated, but that it shouldn't be.
A lot of comments on this article so far are focused on blindness of the review system, control over publications, etc. which is definitely relevant, but is only half of the story.
The other half is the reasons why papers are popular, and how credit is attributed in papers, grants, and other research.
First there is the question of why papers are published, then why they are cited, and then how peers mentally attribute credit in those cited works. At each step of the way, there are problems: there are biases in why papers are published, why they are cited, and how credit is attributed. A similar process happens with grants.
Exactly the point of the author (who I know). Not just cliquish, though, but faddish and full of misattribution of credit.
I agree that all of society is susceptible to this. I think the problem is that in the sciences, we pretend it doesn't happen.
With music, for example, society has a clear understanding of quality and popularity, and the distinction between the two. There might be arguments about the two, such as how strongly related they are, or whether or not quality is even a meaningful attribute of music, but I think most people understand that they are not the same, in one way or another.
With science, though, we act as if they are the same. There's an assumption that, sure, there's some noise, but in the end it all evens out and attribution is correctly given and good ideas rise to the top. No corruption, taking or giving credit inappropriately, no cognitive errors or biases, no nepotism, no etc.
The set of assumptions underlying science reminds me a lot of homo economicus in economics. A set of assumptions that are almost certainly untrue, with significant consequences, but which we tend to ignore out of convenience. (I actually think there should be more skeptically rigorous decision-theoretic/economic analysis of different scientific systems and structures, like game-theoretic analyses of different scenarios as they play out in science.)
Discussions like this always seem a little strange. Sure, they're important, but taken out of context they're counterproductive and even harmful.
This is the problem: what is the alternative? The pet theory of a madman or sociopath?
The difficult truth is that everyone has an economic theory, whether they admit it or not. The question is, whose theories do we want to pay attention to? People who spend their lives arguing and thinking about it, and trying to find some evidence in support? But who might be a bit isolated from reality? People who work close to the phenomena being explained, but who don't really rigorously explicate or defend any of their ideas, who haven't had to put them on the table, so to speak? Or have massive, critical financial conflicts of interest?
There's also the difficult problem of identifying when any theories have really been tested well. It's not like we can just run randomized controlled designs on whole civilizations--at least, not most of the time for major policies.
I guess I really don't see the alternative to encouraging the standard academic approach to economics, opening it up to public criticism and discussion, and maybe trying them out when it's ethical and feasible.
Sure, lots about classical economic theory is really ridiculous, and the source of a lot of problems, but then you change those things and then move on. It's not any different from physics theory or chemistry theory in that regard.
Cool take on things, but not really fundamentally new as an explanation of evolution of cooperative traits. Models involving reputation and punishment have been around for awhile. Basically, once you introduce reputation and memory, together with punishment, cooperation becomes more viable as a strategy. It's even led to models of higher-order cooperation, of enforcing the enforcers, etc.
To me it seems like the paper isn't really offering a fundamentally new explanation of how these traits arise, it's just providing a sophisticated analysis of the dynamics.
You brought a smile to my face. I came here to post this same point.
The piece is kind of making a basic fundamental mistake in measurement, assuming that all variability is meaningful variability.
There are ways of making the argument they're trying to make, but they're not doing that.
Also, sometimes a single overall score is useful. A better analogy than the cockpit analogy they use is clothing sizing. Yes, tailored shirts, based on detailed measurements of all your body parts, fit awesome, but for many people, small, medium, large, x-large, and so forth suffice.
I think there's a lesson here about reinventing the wheel.
I appreciate the goals of the company and wish them the best, but they need a psychometrician or assessment psychologist on board.
Without meaning to pick on T-Mobile, the stories I'm hearing here, including yours, lead me to believe that T-Mobile is liable for damages. As in, they didn't take reasonable precautions to safeguard your account, and you suffered financial damages as a result.
I am generally of the philosophy that you should trust no one to do the right thing, but these cases seem to be overlooking the obvious that the phone companies are fucking up on security.
I agree with you, although also agree with another poster that net neutrality is still important, mostly because of interoperability reasons.
However, you're also bringing up an issue that seems really neglected in public discussion, which is the role of municipal infrastructure and policy.
To me there's three things:
1. The importance of net neutrality to the working of the internet, at a theoretical level.
2. The lack of competition.
3. The obligation of companies to the public because of advantages they've been granted.
These discussions always proceed like big ISPs own the land that cables are going over, etc. when that's anything but the case. There's things like the telephones you mention, plus right-of-way laws.
Why the EFF doesn't publish a huge map showing land used by ISPs that's not owned by them I don't understand.
It outrages me to see these ISPs being given right of way, and then having them turn around and act like they don't owe anything to the public, when in fact they wouldn't exist without the public bending over backward to give them all sorts of privileges. They're acting like parasites.
To me I might take arguments against net neutrality more seriously if those arguing against net neutrality would:
1. Lobby for the rights of municipalities and other institutions to set up their own ISPs and networks. No laws against public ISPs.
2. Lobby for ISPs to be held responsible for any and all criminally or civilly infringing content going over their networks. Want to preferentially treat packets? Then you should scan for child porn too. If not, you're implicitly supporting it.
3. Lobby for the elimination of right-of-way. Let municipalities, state and federal governments, and private landholders charge ISPs whatever they want for access over their land.
Of course, ISPs would scream bloody murder and argue such things are ridiculous, but I would argue that they're not at all unreasonable given what the government is asking for in terms of net neutrality. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
I'm very good at identifying needs, in the sense of "here's a fundamental problem, and here's some ways of addressing that problem."
However, I'm not very good at identifying ways of turning that into a profitable enterprise. Often when I think of problems and solutions, it's because others are neglecting something, and aren't even aware of the problem, so there's no motivation to pay for any solutions. That is, you'd be selling something that people don't want because they aren't even aware of the looming problem or risk they have. Later on, sure, when things fall apart, everyone wants the solution I had in mind, but at that point it's obvious and there's too much competition.
My other problem I run into I get too absorbed in my own interests and am not really motivated enough by the profitability of something, even when I know I should be more motivated by it. So here's two ideas, A and B. I'm very interested in A and see it as important, but maybe not so profitable. B is less interesting and maybe less important but more profitable. I subconsciously tend to gravitate toward A, to the thing that I see as interesting and important, but that might not garner a lot of recognition or compensation in the short-term.
I think so far I've been kind of unstrategic about where to go in life, and people have just seen me as smart and valuable enough to have around to solve problems. That's gotten me fairly far, but I've reached a point where maybe I need to be more entrepreneurial.
I've also seen enough things in my life to know that there's a ton of unpredictable social dynamics that go into these ventures, and I'm kind of burned out. Fads, corruption, etc.
What's stopping me? I think it's mostly burnout and disillusionment.
I do research in the behavioral sciences. I've published a little on analysis of neural activity, although it's not my area of specialty, but I do specialize in analyses that are cognate to DL models and are often covered in textbooks on DL along with classical DL models.
My sense is that the level of understanding of how human cognition works mathematically speaking is roughly similar to our understanding of how DL works in computer science, in the sense that if you asked a cognitive neuroscientist or psychologist how someone classifies cats versus non-cats, you'd get an answer that would seem pretty similar to what you'd get from a computer scientist. The behavioral scientist might go into a lot more detail about certain issues, but that's because the biology is so entertwined.
However, I'd also argue that we really don't know much about how human (or any animal) cognition works, and I'd also argue that our understanding of DL is fairly poor, in that a lot of it is tinkering and seeing what happens, without a deep understanding of why it works. There isn't a theory of DL in the same way that there's a Martin-Lof theory of randomness, or a Kolmogorov theory of algorithmic complexity, or a Fisherian model of inference.
Also, the sort of tasks currently involved in AI research is a tiny subset of what you encounter in neuroscience and psychology. Most of what is a hot topic in comp sci would basically be classified as perceptual tasks in human behavioral science, maybe at a slightly higher level, and maybe motor control. That leaves things like conscious versus nonconscious processing, reasoning, the role of emotion in decision-making, uncertainty valuation, creativity, etc. etc. etc.
I agree that the processing power is an issue but it's only part of the puzzle.
One thing that illustrates the complexity of the issues involved, and how we've only begun to scratch the surface, is the article's assertion that comp sci should borrow more the idea of sparse representations from cognitive neuroscience. I thought that was interesting, because in a lot of ways, one of the major trends in the last ten years in human neuroscience is away from this "sparseness" idea. It was a common assumption maybe 15 years ago, but now people routinely get excoriated for invoking that idea. The current paradigm is one more where a lot of pathways/circuits are being recruited simultaneously. Statements like "you might use 10,000 neurons of which 100 are active" would lead to ridicule. The intuitive way of explaining the problem is that even while your brain is trying to decide if you're perceiving a cat versus something else, it's also processing the consequences of that decision along about 10 different dimensions, the implications for the rest of the stimuli coming in, along with a number of other things we just don't understand.
I don't agree with the idea that the value of bitcoin was always to evade taxes and launder money. Maybe that's a primary motive for many, but I don't think that constitutes the value of bitcoin in toto.
I have no skin in the bitcoin game--I've never possessed any bitcoin and don't feel any burning desire to in the near future.
As monetary transactions have moved to the electronic sphere, there's been an important shift from how value is verified. With paper currency, the physical form of the coin or bill acts as verification of its value (thus the focus on counterfeiting, etc.). The trust in the value comes from the physical object possessing certain characteristics. Electronically, though, in the current system, everything is based on verification by trusted institutions. So there's no way of Alice paying Bob without it being verified by Ted, who then makes a lot of money and has lots of control over the financial system.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency tries to get back to the idea of peer-to-peer financial exchange without needing that third party, which I think is really valuable in society.
I agree with the concerns being raised in the article that there's a danger of criminalizing peer-to-peer financial transactions, because it basically starts granting new power to institutions that were previously held indirectly by the currency issuing bank.
Also, if everyone in my city wanted to start trading in tulips, why should the government criminalize the tulip trade (as opposed to criminalizing not reporting the value of the tulips you own)?
It's difficult to really say for certain what's going on. The adjustments I'm sure are very crude compared to what case assignment decisions are actually based on, for example, so I'm sure they're adjustments wouldn't really account very well for patient illness severity or other subtleties along those lines.
Another possibility is that younger staff are more likely to be questioned about things. "Have you thought about X?" causes them to rethink something and make a revision. If older staff are just assumed to know what they're doing, they might be questioned less.
The fact that differences weren't present among physicians with a large volume also makes me wonder if this is just a fishing expedition that wouldn't replicate. Not to cast aspersions on the authors; just to say that if you slice up any dataset enough you can find something.
I really don't mean this as a criticism of Kotlin, I'm just trying to map this all out. Kotlin seems nice and like something I could use, but I'm sure it has its boundaries also.
I have nothing against Kotlin. It seems to be coming out of nowhere to surpass more "tested" languages for lack of a better way of putting it, but as I'm reading about it I can truly see the appeal.
The one thing I'm having trouble figuring out, though, is how much it diverges from Java in terms of inheritance, traits, etc. The verbosity of Java is one thing, but its inheritance system is what made me want to pull my hair out.
Languages like Scala, Haskell, Rust, etc. are preferable to me in that way. Kotlin seems nice and clean--from what I've seen so far, with this "Android bump", Kotlin native, etc., I could even see it replacing Python--but I worry there's something lurking deeper.
This is the clearest thing I've found so far, but it's very old at this point:
It includes this quote that stokes my fears: "It feels as if the language designers haven't really designed at this point, they've just thrown a load of stuff at the wall because inheritance is something that all Java developers want and given us a few bad ways of doing something as well as something that has the potential to make us write better Java."
I don't have any attachment to Scala. However, I do think Scala, Rust, etc. have moved language design forward in significant, fundamental ways, and it would be nice to see those advancements recognized in the Android platform.
Take this all with a grain of salt, though, because I know next to nothing about Kotlin.
I lived not too far from where Red Delicious was originally bred, and I can say from personal experience the original Red Delicious is not the Red Delicious that is typically sold in the grocery store.
Of course, I've never had the original one, but the heritage Red Delicious apples from multiple small orchards within a certain radius of where it was developed all taste totally unlike the ones in large groceries elsewhere in the US.
The ones from Iowa you would probably recognize as Red Delicious if you were told that, and if you were not told their identity you probably wouldn't. They're much smaller, rounder, more variegated in color, and have a much more complex flavor. Many people would probably guess McIntosh, but probably would say they have no idea.
My experiences have left me with the strong impression that some kind of subsequent genetic drift/inadvertent selection occurred, or that there's such a dominant set of horticulture protocols with the apple that the original characteristics of the apple have been washed out.
I'm confused about this. I'm hurried at the moment, but this seems to a bill that orders tech companies to provide a solution to encryption without having a backdoor?
Isn't this like legislating a violation of mathematics or something?
So... my first reaction to your comment was "why don't they just turn this into an actual auction, with no price limits? This seems like such a good solution that I feel like I must be missing something."
However, thinking about it more, I think there's a problem with that that's hidden by the nature of the United debacle.
In that situation, the passengers had tickets, and they company was trying to seat their own staff. That is, the potential buyer was the airline, and the sellers were the passengers. So in that scenario, auctioning makes sense, because you can literally flip the buyer and seller roles.
However, in a typical overbooking situation, there are more passengers than seats, so it's unclear who the buyer and sellers are, because none of the "sellers" actually "own" anything definitive. If the tickets are all infinitely valuable to each passenger, no one can get on the plane, and there's a sort of stalemate. Then I suppose there would be a cost to each passenger, and an incentive to accept a price, and it wouldn't be infinite anymore. But in general, the cost dynamics seem weird to me. But then again, I'm not an expert in this.
At some level, overbooking seems indistinguishable from fraud--which can also be profitable for its practitioners.
Capitalism IMHO isn't the problem, the problem is misregulation--either too much regulation, not enough, or regulation in the wrong places.
Capitalism works great as long as certain assumptions are met--things like adequate competition, rational, informed decision making, and so forth. Regulation exists more or less because those assumptions are unrealistic. If you have regulations that target those things appropriately, things are fine; otherwise, all hell breaks loose.
The US is currently screwed because of meaningless discussions over whether or not regulation is good or bad in general, rather than how those regulations should take place and what they should be. In some cases, more regulation might be good (net neutrality); in other cases maybe less regulation would be better (health provider licensing). In some cases the need for regulation depends on other things, like competition (net neutrality would be unnecessary if every market had 10 ISPs to choose from).
It seems like the US is perseverating over some political debate from the 1970s that is no longer relevant. We're being held hostage by a subgroup of baby boomers who are stuck in the prime of their young adulthood and don't realise the rest of civilization has moved on to new problems.
In the end, problems with that seem to me to be related to how the political system is set up, rather than capitalism per se. Things like the electoral college, winner-takes-all voting systems, laws about campaign financing, and so forth and so on.
I've grown so concerned about the state of society that I'm starting to think something like socialism might be the the best of a bunch of bad solutions, but I'd prefer something that targets the problems at the source, as far as I see them.
I think the dynamics are different in each case, but my guess is in most cases, the widowing event is one that is predictable, especially through chronic illness.
Chronic illness in a spouse or family member is a major stressor. Not only do you watch a loved one suffer, you often have major responsibilities as a result. So when the person passes, there's probably a mixed sense of tremendous sadness, but also a sense that your loved one is no longer suffering, and you can try to move on.
Divorce is different, but similar in that in most cases, problems leading to divorce have been going on for some time. So by the time the divorce happens, it's seen as an undesirable outcome, but one that is better than staying married.
The "missing situation" you seem to be implying or thinking about is one where a spouse/significant other is killed unexpectedly by accident or trauma, like a fatal car accident that is not their fault. My guess is those cases, you'd see a decline in well-being after the event, followed by a recovery to baseline.
The case of women after unemployment was puzzling to me, though. It led me to question the validity of the inferences, or to wonder what's going on with women that's different from men. I wondered if childcare had something to do with it. Perhaps women tend to leave employment because of children, return and then feel satisfied in doing so, but then realize they miss staying at home with the child? Maybe the industries they are in are different from men, and are subject to different trajectories? I have no idea.
This is one of the great unrecognized problems with the economy at the moment. I'm not so sure about engineering, but it's created all sorts of monopolies in health care that have nothing really to do with actual safety risks or any kind of rational approach to mitigating risk, and everything to do with protecting guild members.
A lot of comments on this article so far are focused on blindness of the review system, control over publications, etc. which is definitely relevant, but is only half of the story.
The other half is the reasons why papers are popular, and how credit is attributed in papers, grants, and other research.
First there is the question of why papers are published, then why they are cited, and then how peers mentally attribute credit in those cited works. At each step of the way, there are problems: there are biases in why papers are published, why they are cited, and how credit is attributed. A similar process happens with grants.