Executive summary: Research involves navigating large spaces of hypotheses and experiments. Success requires research taste to hone in on promising ideas, avoiding uninformative directions; sufficient paranoia to avoid overinterpreting evidence; and communication skills to transfer knowledge.
Key points:
Research taste helps prune large spaces of possibilities and select informative hypotheses and experiments. It develops through seeing lots of evidence about what works.
Avoid jumping to conclusions by thinking creatively about how your evidence could be misleading. Peer review helps instill needed paranoia.
Communication transfers research ideas and multiplies impact. Precision and explaining intuitions are key challenges.
Motivation matters with uncertain feedback. Collaborating provides support and more brains.
Log everything to enable future analyses. Tolerate stupid questions. Prioritize informative experiments over what’s easiest.
Iterate rapidly to accelerate learning. Balance shipping with thoughtfulness.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: Research involves navigating large spaces of hypotheses and experiments. Success requires research taste to hone in on promising ideas, avoiding uninformative directions; sufficient paranoia to avoid overinterpreting evidence; and communication skills to transfer knowledge.
Key points:
Research taste helps prune large spaces of possibilities and select informative hypotheses and experiments. It develops through seeing lots of evidence about what works.
Avoid jumping to conclusions by thinking creatively about how your evidence could be misleading. Peer review helps instill needed paranoia.
Communication transfers research ideas and multiplies impact. Precision and explaining intuitions are key challenges.
Motivation matters with uncertain feedback. Collaborating provides support and more brains.
Log everything to enable future analyses. Tolerate stupid questions. Prioritize informative experiments over what’s easiest.
Iterate rapidly to accelerate learning. Balance shipping with thoughtfulness.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.