Intermediate sci knowledge associated with overconfidence and negative attitudes

Re:Intermediate sci knowledge associated with overconfidence... by biomcgary on Thursday September 14, 2023 @02:06PM (#37512551)

I think your distinction between 1 and 2 is very important (but, as a computational biologist, I disagree about CompSci not being science :-).

Along these lines, I think the role of consensus in science has been overly dramatized by those with various policies to push. Max Planck's principle is famous in the short form "Science progresses one funeral at a time". One of the professors I worked with as a graduate student had a sign on his desk, "First They Ignore You, Then They Laugh at You, Then They Attack You, Then You Win".

These two quotes captures an important tension in the practice of science: consensus both retards the progress of science and captures it for others to build on.

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Re:Intermediate sci knowledge associated with overconfidence... by mcguire on Thursday September 14, 2023 @02:38PM (#37512941)

Retarding the progress of science is sometimes (often?) a good thing.

Many people regard Einstein's later career as fruitless, but by attacking quantum mechanics, he improved its foundations as well as making it much more acceptable.

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