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Re:We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the W... by xtiansimon on Thursday April 07, 2022 @07:39AM (#30943171)
How does his ego effect anyone who doesn’t work for him? I read most of the announcement and he’s promising research papers and lecture/teaching materials. That’s good, no?

Wolfram’s over the top next level ego, to be sure. But he’s on the side of science and reason, so he’s our ego-maniac.

Re:We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the W... by mistrial9 on Thursday April 07, 2022 @08:57AM (#30943817)
I have interacted with Dr Wolf-ram, and I dont like being spoken down to, or given direct orders by a stranger. Plenty of criticism here today, very well-deserved by my limited and direct experience.
Re:We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the W... by logicchains on Thursday April 07, 2022 @08:10AM (#30943381)
>But he’s on the side of science and reason, so he’s our ego-maniac.

Humility and the ability to recognise and accept when we're wrong is one of the fundamental characteristics of science. People with big egos are the enemies of science.

Re:We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the W... by fristechill on Thursday April 07, 2022 @09:59AM (#30944502)
Humility before the truth is vital but not necessarily humility as expressed in one's public statements.

Indeed psychoticism was identified by the psychologist Hans Eysenck as one of the traits of genius, including scientific genius. Psychoticism is a package which includes associative thinking, creativity, disagreeableness, lack of empathy, antisocial nature, introversion, coldness, aggression, high self-esteem.

The problem is that most people are afraid of giving offence, of being ostracised by their colleagues and so on, and so they self-censor their original thoughts and never create anything fundamentally new and important.

So it's unsurprising that most of the great scientists in history had very difficult personalities (Faraday may have been an exception). I think the optimal approach is to study and benefit from the work of geniuses but have as little to do with them personally as possible. Leave them alone to their work.

Of course the fact that someone has a difficult personality does not mean he is a great thinker. However science has a mechanism for dealing with that via the publication system, where ideas that are wrong are eventually criticised and ultimately forgotten.

Re:We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the W... by EricE on Thursday April 07, 2022 @10:02AM (#30944541)
"People with big egos are the enemies of science." lol - history doesn't agree with this AT ALL.
Re:We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the W... by qorrect on Thursday April 07, 2022 @11:33AM (#30945842)
Written history is a re-creation of past events and big egos are entertaining.

Claude Shannon coined the word bit and fathered Information Theory. But very few know his name, despite his huge influence on our daily lives.

This is a long winded way of saying, written history is probably half right at best.

Ten years ago I watched a pay-per-view boxing match. At the end, the fighter said "I'm not the greatest but I'll fight the greatest".

2 minutes later the local news misquoted him as saying "I am the greatest".

Re:We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the W... by posix_me_less on Thursday April 07, 2022 @12:11PM (#30946460)
You're describing generally positive traits, not specific to science. Science was pushed forward by many kinds of people, many of them obnoxious, arrogant, racists, etc. You can't disqualify Wolfram as scientist by pointing to his bad personality characteristics.