The disappearance of the “absent-minded, eccentric professor” from our culture

Re:The disappearance of the “absent-minded, eccentric profes... by throawayfuntime on Wednesday September 29, 2021 @11:47AM (#28695303)

yes, in any system where you are sampling from a population as you increase the bias the variance decreases.

Increase competition, i.e. apply bias to the filter that selected samples(people) for continuation in an academic or professional environment, and the variance of the people who make it past that filter will go down.

There is no way to avoid this.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The disappearance of the “absent-minded, eccentric profes... by scop on Wednesday September 29, 2021 @11:52AM (#28695382)

Well what I found interesting is that while the phenomenon of increased conformity in upper academia is not new to me (e.g. Eric Weinstein's discussions on the matter), the cultural change surrounding this phenomenon is not something I had yet recognized (i.e. scientists in movies are like lawyers).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The disappearance of the “absent-minded, eccentric profes... by thelastestate on Wednesday September 29, 2021 @06:06PM (#28700601)

This disturbed me as well. The nuts and neurodivergent (there's a difference!) still exist but maybe it's not a filtering phenomenon but just the author not recognizing code switching?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The disappearance of the “absent-minded, eccentric profes... by thelastestate on Wednesday September 29, 2021 @06:11PM (#28700650)

Why have a bias for that particular attribute?

[ Parent | on HN ]